


Valor and Discretion

by Scedasticity



Series: Start Again [4]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, New Game Plus, Sort Of, changing the past is really complicated okay, especially when the rules have changed and nobody's told you, more characters may be tagged as they appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2019-08-20 11:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16554959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: There are times to keep secrets and times to share secrets and times to create bigger secrets, and Ryuji just hopes he's identifying them correctly.





	1. The Starting Line

**Author's Note:**

> This is fourth in the 'Start Again' series. I don't think reading the others is strictly necessary, but it will explain some things, especially later on.

The first thing Ryuji did after waking up was hurl himself out of bed and stumble to the window, where he was relieved to see it was not raining blood. Then he grabbed his phone to call Akira—

Akira's contact was missing. The other Thieves weren't there, either.

The MetaNav was also missing.

Wait. This was — this was his old phone, from middle school.

Then he noticed the date.

Well, _shit_.

He sat on his bedroom floor and stared at the middle school track awards he'd thrown away while he tried to remember Akira's phone number. (His room decorations were less distressing than the strands of black hair he could see in his peripheral vision, or his limbs that seemed _off_ , or—) He didn't remember the number, at all, but called four strangers and apologized for the wrong number before his mom knocked on his door.

"Ryuji, honey? You're going to be late for school if you don't hurry…"

Right, it was Monday…

"Coming, Mom," he called, and tried to get his act together.

It wasn't easy. His arms and legs weren't the right length. He ran into a wall because he was trying to favor a bad knee that wasn't bad. The bathroom mirror held — not a stranger, but some stupid kid Ryuji used to know. His mom had made breakfast, which was good because he didn't think he could have managed to put it together himself—

"How was the Shuujin Academy cultural festival?" his mom asked. "Did it look like a good place?"

Yesterday was Christmas and he'd been fighting a monstrous Holy Grail _thing_ and dissolving in the middle of Shibuya.

Yesterday was a Sunday in early November and he'd gone to the Shuujin Academy cultural festival because he was thinking of applying there.

He'd had this conversation before, hadn't he?

Except he hadn't zoned out in the middle of it before.

"Uh. I guess it was fine," he said. Because he had no excuse for knowing the principal was a pompous, corrupt bootlicker and the Olympian coach was a _sexual predator_.

Kamoshida had _shaken his hand_. Ew.

"Ryuji? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine! Just — I had some weird dreams is all. Trying to wake up enough for school."

Wait — _Ann_ would be at school.

* * *

Ann… probably wouldn't be able to remember Akira's phone number either, but it was _possible_. Maybe they could come up with it together. Two heads were better than one, right? And she might be able to approach Yusuke — or even Makoto or Futaba — or she might have an idea of how to find Morgana! The damn cat would probably have an idea of whether they were stuck in a weird memory illusion or back in time somehow.

If they were back in time, if they just found Morgana they could get into the Metaverse right away! He wasn't certain they could change Kamoshida's heart with just Ryuji and Ann and Morgana and maybe Yusuke or Makoto, but he wasn't certain they _couldn't_. It was worth a try. Madarame's Palace might be doable, too. And the Phantom Thieves could definitely make some headway in the upper levels of Mementos.

By the time he got to his classroom — after almost falling on his face on the stairs because his legs weren't as long as they should be — he was halfway to envisioning welcoming Akira to Tokyo with fully-assembled Phantom Thieves, Kamoshida and Madarame out of the way, and they could get straight to Shido, and then figure out how to tackle the Holy Grail. It would be awesome.

And then Ann looked at him with no more recognition than she'd give any other classmate, and he knew. He knew.

He couldn't keep from asking, "Do you remember?"

She gave him a _severe_ look. "About the five hundred yen you owe me? Damn right I do!"

Fuck. _Fuck_. "Oh. I'll… I'll try to pay you back."

Akira would have understood barricading himself in the broom closet for the rest of the morning, to try to convince himself he wasn't actually any worse off than he'd been when he woke up. And Akira wouldn't have challenged him when he claimed the dust was making his eyes water.

But Akira wasn't there.

* * *

Ryuji knew he had the reputation of being the least discreet Phantom Thief. And yeah, he'd sort of outed them to Makoto before she joined. And maybe made everyone else nervous a couple other times. And he did come charging in and ask Ann if she remembered right in front of Shiho. And the rest of 3-C.

But once it was clear she _didn't_ remember…

Well. It was easy to keep a secret when you didn't have anyone to talk about it with.

* * *

His leg was fine. It worked as well as it ever had. The occasional painful spasms were all in his head. It was a relief to walk normally, really.

It still took a couple more days for him to stop tripping on stairs because he was expecting his legs to be longer. Ryuji was oddly grateful for it. If the whole future was just a weird vivid dream, then it couldn't possibly have messed up his sense of his own body so badly, could it? And if the Holy Grail were trapping him in some sort of… fake vision thing, then that would be a weird unnecessary detail to include. So this was probably — somehow — real. He had — somehow — come back in time.

Now, it was certainly _possible_ that it was just him. …Possibly that was the most likely thing. But it would be a pretty big coincidence to _just happen_ to arrive in the past immediately after he first met Kamoshida. Maybe the others just… weren't here yet?

It was something to hope for, at least.

* * *

It was hard to engage with his friends — well, with _the guys he hung out with in middle school_ , because there'd been hardly any contact _after_ middle school. What contact there was had cut off abruptly after the Kamoshida/track team/leg disaster. So, not really friends, not much in common anymore… It was okay if he kept to complaining about school. 

Schoolwork was a little easier at least. Compared to high school anyway. 

And middle school track didn't have any of the same people as Shuujin track. So he could still do that without memories swamping him — except for the occasional attacks from his imaginary leg injury. 

He got by. It was really lonely, though.

* * *

Leblanc wasn't there. He didn't know what he would have done if it _had_ been there, since it's not like Akira would have automatically come with it. Akira was presumably somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, busy not having his life ruined yet.

(What would he do, if he had the opportunity to say something to Akira? 'If you see this guy, walk away, save yourself'? Or, 'Do it, throw yourself into the fire, we need you'?)

* * *

After almost three weeks of being spooked by himself in every reflective surface he couldn't avoid, Ryuji cracked and bought a home hair bleach kit and a tube of gel.

The first time around he had used hydrogen peroxide. The results had not been pretty. Well, he hadn't been _going_ for "pretty", but he also hadn't been going for "make his mom trim his damaged hair to not look like a diseased haystack and re-bleach it _properly_ after it grew out a bit". Not this time! He was going to be smart — better a little more money and time reading the instructions than giving his mom more to worry about.

Ryuji followed all of the instructions exactly (Makoto would be proud) and the bleach job turned out perfect — just the color he was looking for, the way it looked after he knew what he was doing with it. It still didn't look right, of course — that was what the gel was for.

Half an hour later, he realized his hair was a little _longer_ than it had been in the future, he'd used way more gel than he'd planned, and he'd given himself terrible anime hair.

Of course that was when his mom got home.

"Ryuji?" she called. "Where are you?"

Oh noooooo. He considered locking the door, but the apartment only had one bathroom. "Just a minute, Mom, I'm — uh—"

One of the gelled spikes slowly drooped over.

Footsteps, and his mother appeared in the doorway. "Are you— Your _hair_!"

Ryuji winced. "Sorry, Mom, the gel didn't — quite work how I was thinking—" Stupid, like she was going to care about the _gel_ — "Look, I just — it feels better like this. Or a little shorter. But I — I'm sorry, but this is — I really need my hair like this right now."

His mother stared at him. "Ryuji, did something happen?"

Wasn't _that_ a question. "…No?"

"You've seemed stressed lately — I'm sorry I haven't been around more—"

"No, it's fine, Mom!" he said hastily. "Not your fault. Nothing you could do. I just— I need my hair like this right now. I — this is fine."

She sighed. "Let's have dinner, honey."

Ryuji did not magically come up with a convincing explanation for his sudden pressing need to dye his hair. (He actually contemplated trying to tell her about the time travel, but decided against it.) But after dinner, his mom said she could see the hair was very important to him, so he could keep it. But please talk to her about anything else first?

"Of course, Mom," he said, not sure if he meant it. "…Um, I would like to shorten it a bit…?"

Even with the hair fixed, he looked wrong in the mirror. The hair helped, a lot, but he still looked like a little middle school kid. He guessed that couldn't be helped — two years could make a big difference for a teenager. He'd probably get used to it just in time to grow out of it.

* * *

"You know," Ann said, catching up with him as he left school, "if you have money to be _bleaching your hair_ you have money to be paying me back. In fact you probably should have done that first."

" _Ann_ ," Shiho sighed, behind her.

"I'm not saying it looks _bad_ , just that it might not have been a very good idea. You're going to get some bad attention, you know."

"I know." He wasn't about to try to explain. "Look, I swear I'll—"

There was a black cat across the street, running into an alley. A black cat with white paws and a white-tipped tail and a yellow collar—

"Excuse me," Ryuji blurted, and he dropped his school case and _ran_.

He made it across the street without being hit by anything, good enough, and then he was running full tilt down the alley. "Morgana!" he hissed. "Stupid cat— I remember, okay? Or if you don't remember, I know about the Metaverse, I know you're not really a cat—" He dove for the cat, caught it, ignored the scratches to his hands— "Stupid cat, it's _me_ —"

—Looked down into _brown_ eyes.

" _Ohshit._ "

* * *

Ryuji managed to keep anyone from calling an ambulance _and_ talk his mom out of leaving work early to pick him up at the clinic a teacher insisted on driving him to, so that was good.

Plus, Ann was able to examine the collar and verify that the cat was up to date on its rabies shots! Which was… better than the alternative, anyway.

"That, uh, really cut down on the needles I had to deal with," he told Ann on Tuesday. "So, uh, thank you. A lot. And I got your five hundred yen." That was the least he owed her, even in this timeline.

"You still had to get shots?" Ann asked.

"Tetanus booster," Ryuji said glumly. "And antibiotics. And I have to clean this stupid bite like ten times a day."

Ann made a sympathetic face. "But really, why did you _grab_ it like that? It was… well, it was relatively friendly when it wasn't being _chased and grabbed_."

"I thought I recognized it," he tried to explain. Morgana wouldn't have taken being _chased and grabbed_ terribly well, either, but he probably wouldn't have bitten. Beneath his dignity as a "human". "But it was some other cat. It was stupid. I was just… I was really hoping it was the cat I knew."

"I see," Ann said, not sounding like she did. "Well… Thank you for paying me back _finally_. Come sit with us, you and Shiho can compare tetanus shot experiences. Though she got hurt on some debris in an alley trying to _rescue_ a cat, not _terrorize_ one—"

He was so used to hanging out with Ann in the future he didn't even realize until a few days later that it was kind of strange that Ann and Shiho _kept_ eating lunch with him. They probably felt sorry for him and/or thought someone needed to babysit him or he'd run into traffic.

…Except he sort of already _had_ run into traffic, or at least across it, in front of them when he was trying to catch not-Morgana.

It was kind of embarrassing, and they didn't have a whole lot in common without the Phantom Thieves or the hells of Shuujin, but Ann was funny and Shiho was kind and he was less lonely, so… he'd take it.

* * *

Spending more time with Ann and Shiho put him in the awkward position of being present while they talked about where to go for high school. Of maybe, as December rolled into January, being able to _influence_ where they would go for high school.

…He had to decide where _he_ would go to high school. Fuck.

* * *

Okay. Think about this logically. He could figure this out.

Kamoshida still needed to be stopped, even if Ryuji had the chance to avoid him personally. He couldn't just run away. So that meant he should go to Shuujin.

…Except he didn't need to _attend_ Shuujin to stop Kamoshida. He had plenty of intelligence on the fucker already. And none of the in-school interactions had helped in any way, so dealing with that whole mess would just be a distraction, and he should find somewhere else to go.

… _Except_ when he thought of having plenty of intelligence he was thinking of _intelligence that got them through Kamoshida's Palace_ , which didn't do him any good without the damn MetaNav. He didn't have any intelligence that would be any good against Kamoshida in the real world, as demonstrated by their not having been able to do anything about Kamoshida in the real world. So maybe he should go to Shuujin to try to do that.

…But that avenue hadn't worked out at all last time, so maybe not.

…But Kamoshida had already known Ryuji was an enemy, then. The most they could do was try to ask other people who might know. This time he was an unknown. That had more possibilities. So maybe.

…Was he seriously trying to talk himself into joining the volleyball team so Kamoshida could beat him up? No. Just, no. If getting beaten up — even without being provoked into hitting first — someone on the team would have shut him down ages ago. No.

But if he wasn't going to do that, what _was_ he going to do?

 _Could_ he do anything, from the outside?

…If he wasn't in Shuujin, how would he justify making contact with Akira?

So. Ryuji was going to Shuujin again. (Just maybe avoid coming to Kamoshida's attention. Quit the track team as soon as he looked that way. Or just never join. Yeah, that might be a safer plan.)

Ann, though.

He wanted to keep Ann far away from Kamoshida. And Shiho, god, he wanted to keep Shiho even farther away.

But — Ryuji had come back to right after he met Kamoshida. What if Ann was supposed to, too? What would happen to her if Ryuji changed things so she never did?

Or even if she _wasn't_ supposed to be coming back, how could they possibly rebuild the Phantom Thieves without _Ann_?

But how could Ryuji let them walk into that without saying _something_?

…He couldn't.

* * *

RS: ann?  
AT: if this is about the history reading youre going to have to message Shiho  
AT: D:  
RS: its not  
AT: oh good  
AT: explain it to me  
RS: no I havent tried it yet  
RS: this is something else  
AT: there was something else?  
RS: is it too late for you to go somewhere other than shuujin?  
AT: …  
AT: not sure  
AT: why?  
RS: ok so  
RS: i admit i dont have any proof  
AT: ominous  
RS: but ive been hearing some nasty rumors about one of the teachers at shuujin  
RS: REALLY nasty  
RS: like  
RS: especially nasty about how he is with the girls  
RS: …  
RS: ann?  
RS: say something  
AT: i havent heard anything about that?  
AT: where did you hear it?  
RS: uh  
RS: i cant tell you  
RS: but please please please believe me about this  
AT: …  
AT: i dont think youre lying or anything  
RS: please please please believe the story because i am 100% sure its true  
RS: i couldnt let you or shiho go there without saying something  
AT: …  
RS: i probably should have said something earlier actually  
RS: sorry  
AT: i need to think about this

Shit. He should've started up an anti-Kamoshida smear campaign the minute he remembered.

He wished he could ask Futaba how to do an anonymous online smear campaign. Or even Mishima, Mishima would probably at least know how to _start_.

* * *

Ann got back to him the next day.

AT: are these rumors documented anywhere they could be shown to shihos parents  
AT: preferably somewhere official-ish?

He _really_ should have started a smear campaign.

RS: dont think so  
AT: then i think shihos parents are set on shuujin  
AT: so  
AT: thats where im going too

Well, he'd tried.

RS: thatll be three of us, then

He guessed they were going to Shuujin.


	2. Muddy Water

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a very... transitional chapter. I hope it works okay.

Shuujin was… full of memories. Mostly bad ones. The good ones were frequently harder to deal with. 

It wasn't exactly the same as he remembered. Of course it wouldn't be — this time Ryuji wasn't an enthusiastic track hopeful trying to put his best foot forward but a jaded, suspicious possible delinquent in the making. He wasn't messing with the uniform, but the hair alone attracted _Looks_.

He figured Kobayakawa's secretary trying to convince him to go to some sort of… internship interview or something was down to that. You wouldn't have thought possible delinquency would attract internship interviews, but after Ryuji declined they apparently settled for Takanashi and Sakoda. (Those two either didn't have their mob ties yet or were looking to branch out, so they accepted, then spent the next morning complaining about how it was a stupid boring interview, which presumably meant they hadn't gotten it.)

But he thought there were some differences that _weren't_ because of different reactions to Ryuji? Some of them it was hard to be sure about because he didn't remember the beginning of high school in that much detail. He didn't remember Kobayakawa's speech at the entrance ceremony being so _completely_ meaningless — seriously, nothing but buzzwords, and he kept repeating himself — but would he have, really? Maybe he'd just been giving Kobayakawa more credit then.

And he didn't remember everything smelling like _paint_ , like the school had just been redecorated over break. It was the same style as it had been, so maybe he was just forgetting? And the windows looked _shinier_. Unless it was his imagination. Or maybe they had been that shiny and he just hadn't noticed. Maybe the school got renovated every spring break — well, no, it wasn't that, because they hadn't before his second year.

Then there was a corner of the gym that was sectioned off for repairs — like thoroughly sectioned off, with temporary walls going up past the height of the bleachers and dust sheeting above that. He was almost certain he would remember that, if it had been there last time. The teacher giving them the tour didn't explain what the repairs were, just said they'd been assured there would be no disruptions during school hours, warned them not to lean on the temporary wall, and said the area under repair was unsafe and no one should enter. Judging from the teacher's expression, he didn't know what exactly they were doing in there, either. 

Maybe Kobayakawa had just found out Kamoshida had killed previous rival coaches and buried them under the gym floor, and was trying to get the bodies out without anyone noticing. Ha. 

And that was all very interesting, but things took a sharp swerve into the wtf when he spotted _Goro fucking Akechi_ in a second-year class. 

Ryuji assumed at first it was his imagination getting paranoid on him, seeing enemies everywhere. Like Kamoshida wasn't enough. But Ryuji saw him again during lunch — sitting by himself and texting furiously, it looked like. Ryuji came closer on the excuse of going to the vending machines, and — same stupid hair, same reddish eyes — missing the smug smile, he was frowning at his phone, but it was _definitely_ Akechi.

Akechi was not supposed to be in Shuujin.

Shuujin had enough problems already, it did not need _fucking Akechi_.

Who _should_ have been in Shuujin was Makoto and Haru. Ryuji hadn't been counting on any help from them, if they didn't remember Makoto would be in Miss Student Council Suck-Up Mode and Haru would be too shy and nervous to talk, but _they should have been there_.

If they were, they were being extremely stealthy. 

Ryuji glared at Akechi with redoubled suspicion. 

Akechi watched him, flat-eyed, whenever he came closer than ten meters or so, but showed no sign of recognition. 

"You don't want to start a fight with that one," one of the second-year track team members advised him. (He hadn't committed to joining the team… but he did want to use the track.) "He's a throwaway child, but he has friends — even if they're not here right now."

"I bet he does," Ryuji muttered. Fucking _Shido_.

"…And I heard someone tried to punch him and he bit their finger off."

 _That_ , on the other hand, sounded like the good old Shuujin Academy rumor mill inventing dirt. He didn't really see the Charismatic Detective Prince biting anyone at all, much less biting someone's finger off. 

…Not in the real world, anyway. Black Mask he could see biting someone's _face_ off.

* * *

While he had been stressing out over Akechi, Shiho had _gone and signed up for volleyball tryouts_.

"What did she do that for?" he hissed to Ann. "The coach is obviously a creepy perv! Didn't she see how he's been looking at you?" _Ryuji_ hadn't actually seen Kamoshida looking at Ann, this time around — too distracted by goddamn _Akechi_ — but it was an educated guess. 

"Ryuji, avoiding every person who looks at me creepily would probably require becoming a shut-in," Ann replied. "He's a _prestigious_ creep." She paused, and frowned. "Wait, were those nasty rumors about him _specifically_?"

" _Yes_! And now that we're here, the volleyball team — don't they look beaten down? You can tell it's a terrible team to join!"

"When have you even had time to look at the volleyball team?" But she was clearly thinking. "The problem is she's really good at volleyball and her parents are expecting it. But she can be careful, at least…"

"There's no such thing as careful enough," Ryuji said. 

"I'll go with her to tryouts."

"I don't think that's going to help!"

He was pretty sure it would make it worse, actually. But what was he supposed to do, imply it would be Ann's fault if Shiho was singled out? No, it would be better just to keep Shiho off the volleyball team and leave Ann out of it.

It wasn't that Shiho's parents didn't care, he didn't think — they just… were paying attention to all the wrong things. There had to be some way to convince them it wasn't worth it.

Stomping past the sign-up sheet, he spotted a familiar face, and had an idea. 

"Hi," he said to Mishima. "You don't want to join the volleyball team, the coach is a creep. You want to help me prove he's a creep."

"I — what?" Mishima said, but he let Ryuji tow him away from the sign-up sheet and listened to the — admittedly still in progress and therefore very vague and previous-timeline-based — description of how beaten down the volleyball team was. 

The next day he asked if he could eat lunch with them. Ryuji wasn't sure if this meant he was up for the Kamoshida-creepiness-proving, Mishima was just really lonely, but it was nice to feel like he'd helped _someone_. And if Mishima could help with an anti-Kamoshida online smear campaign that would persuade Shiho's parents, all the better. 

It could be going worse. Really.

* * *

On Friday Kobayakawa's secretary cornered Ryuji and Mishima during lunch and _heavily implied_ that if Ryuji didn't come to an internship interview on Saturday _steps would be taken_ regarding Ryuji's _lack of respect for community standards_ , or some bullshit like that. Mishima was also invited, with less extortion and more mention of possible payment.

 _Ugh_. Ryuji wasn't sure if they could make anything _stick_ at this point, but what with the hair he genuinely wasn't being a proper respectful boring student, and he really didn't want them to bother his mom with this. Especially not _now_ — this weekend she was supposed to go to an onsen with two of her old friends, they'd been planning and saving for almost a year, and they'd had a really good time when this happened before. He didn't want Kobayakawa to get in the way of that.

So he agreed to go. Mishima followed suit.

The secretary thanked them (ha!) and instructed them to report to the activity office in gym clothes an hour after school ended.

"You might want to back out," Ryuji warned Mishima when the secretary was gone. "This whole thing sounds kinda sketchy."

"Really?" Mishima asked dubiously.

Ryuji tried to figure out if he'd think it was sketchy if he didn't have such a terrible opinion of Shuujin in general and Kobayakawa in particular. He was pretty sure it was inarguably _strange_.

…Kobayakawa by proxy, anyway. Was the secretary new? He didn't _recognize_ the secretary, but that didn't mean anything.

"What kind of internship interview calls for gym clothes?" he asked finally. "It's sketchy."

* * *

Two things happened right after class on Saturday. First, Ryuji watched Akechi purchase _fourteen_ drinks from a vending machine without opening any of them — if that wasn't for Metaverse purposes he was really damn curious what it _was_ for. Second, Ryuji had a fantastic idea for, if not fixing things, at least _stalling_ them.

"Look, Shiho… I get you need to do the volleyball thing you keep your parents happy, but… is there any way you could get away from tryouts for this afternoon?"

"…Why?" Shiho said, which at least wasn't a straight no.

"Because I've been pushed into going to an 'internship interview' this afternoon which is just… Mishima's not convinced but I think it's just really sketchy. Do you think you and Ann could like… come along and at least make sure this isn't, I dunno, some sort of organ-harvesting scheme?"

" _Seriously_ , Ryuji?" Ann complained.

"Look, you can't tell me it's normal to have people come to an internship interview in their gym uniforms—"

"There are some—"

"—Without at least offering some sort of explanation why! They aren't saying 'wear a gym uniform, you'll need to demonstrate running speed', they're just… It's weird and vague and sketchy."

Ann frowned. "They aren't giving _any_ details? Where it is, who's offering it… nothing?"

"They said how much it might pay, which wasn't bad at all. If the whole thing wasn't so sketchy."

"Ye-ah… no details and pushing you into it… Yeah, that's strange."

" _Thank_ you!"

Ann looked at Shiho. "Up to you… do you think you could get away with skipping this tryout?"

Shiho _could_ have pointed out that Ann's presence at tryouts wasn't _necessary_ so there was no reason she couldn't try out while Ann safeguarded Ryuji's kidneys. She didn't, though. "Well… it's not like this is the only way to get onto the team… it sounds like promising students can be recruited any time… They might ask — no, they're not going to ask, they're in Kyushu." She rolled her eyes. "Fine, we'll try to get into Ryuji's sketchy internship interview."

* * *

He was standing outside Shuujin with Akira, with umbrellas to fend off the rain of blood, and trying to explain how _annoying_ it was to deal with Kamoshida _again_. Somehow the explanation took the form of waving around an algebra book that wasn't any more fun the second time through.

Akira nodded sympathetically. "I've got food poisoning, but why are _you_ asleep in the middle of the afternoon?"

"…Huh?"

* * *

Ryuji woke up slowly. His brain felt… heavy and sticky, reluctant to do anything, and he would have tried to go back to sleep, except one, he felt very uncomfortable — he was sitting with his head laid down on a hard surface, a table or desk, and he'd glued himself to it with drool, yuck — and two, he felt… not safe. Or… safe _and_ not safe. Felt _wrong_.

He peeled his face off the table, forced his eyes open, and tried to focus. He tried to rub his eyes and failed somehow. Shit, he felt _awful_. He'd never had a hangover but he suspected they felt like this. Hell, _was_ he hung over? His mom would be so disappointed. Though that wouldn't explain the _wrong_.

A blur across the table eventually resolved into Mishima, sleeping with his head down on the table just like Ryuji had been. He was wearing a gym uniform. Huh. 

Ryuji wasn't wearing a gym uniform. Ryuji was wearing… a black jacket and yellow gloves…?

His mind was still moving so slowly, it took a moment to reach up and check his face. Yup, he was wearing a mask. Which explained why he'd had trouble rubbing his eyes. 

Oh, _that's_ what the _wrong_ feeling meant. He was in the _Metaverse_.

_What the fuck?_

He stood up so fast he got dizzy and had to sit down again, only he'd knocked over his chair and he ended up on the floor. Good thing Mishima was sleeping through this or Ryuji's cool image would be ruined. 

Table and red upholstered chairs. Red carpet, not much of it, quickly giving way to black and white checkerboard tiles.

They were in a safe room in Kamoshida's Palace. 

"Aw, _fuck_ ," he muttered, even though being in an unfamiliar or more dangerous Palace would have been even worse. 

What the _hell_?

Hanging on to the edge of the table, Ryuji managed to get to his feet. Mishima didn't stir. 

Ann was lying on a couch, asleep, wearing a gym uniform. It took Ryuji a moment to recognize the person sitting on the floor and sleeping propped up against the couch as Shiho, because she was wearing not a gym uniform but a long brocade coat in dark blues and greens, black pants, knee-high boots, and a gold half-mask.

"For real?" he blurted, louder than he meant to. "You've gotta be—"

Ann startled awake — as she propped herself up on one elbow, her clothing washed suddenly into her Panther suit. "Ryu— Skull? What the—"

Skull. _Skull_. "Oh please god tell me that means you remember everything now." He started towards them, but had to give up and grab back onto the table.

Ann brought a hand to her head. "I think — _Shiho was going to join the volleyball team_!"

"I _know_ ," Ryuji moaned. "I didn't know what else I could say to discourage her, just try to delay it—"

Ann was shaking Shiho's shoulder. The other girl didn't wake up as fast as Ann had, but didn't seem nearly as groggy as Ryuji still felt.

"You're awake!" Shiho said. "Oh, thank goodness. You passed out as soon as we got in here— And Ann, your clothes — that means you have a Persona, right?"

"Uh — yes, or, we think so?" Ann looked around and made a face. " _This_ place again, _great_." She paused. "Wait, that tear thing led _here_?"

What? "I am very glad you remember but I seem to have _lost_ some memories," Ryuji said. "How the hell did we even get in here?" He gestured a little too emphatically and ended up back on the floor. 

"Skull!" Ann seemed perfectly steady, passing out or not. "Are you all right?"

"Sort of," Shiho said. "We're pretty sure you were right about the juice."

"What?" Ryuji said. He accepted Ann's hand up, and then, more reluctantly, her shoulder back to the couch. It wasn't just his head being muzzy, he felt _weak_ …

"Here, sit down. What's the last thing you remember?"

What did he remember. 

It was Saturday. His mom was off to the onsen. Fucking Akechi had been buying out the vending machines, probably for an evil plan. Ryuji had been blackmailed into going to an interview which was, no matter what Mishima thought, really damn sketchy.

Right, he'd convinced Ann and Shiho to accompany him instead of going to volleyball tryouts. It wouldn't keep Shiho off the team, but it would delay things, and reduce Ann's exposure to Kamoshida, and anyway he really did think more witnesses might… he didn't even know what he was expecting.

Kobayakawa's secretary — Ryuji had to have heard his name but it just wasn't clicking — hadn't been too happy about the additional people at first, but the stranger with him in the office had said more candidates was excellent. They'd been sat down on folding chairs and given some juice and an incomprehensible speech about… leveraging unactualized capacities. And then something about kinesthetic intellectual potential. Or something. Ryuji'd been zoning out a bit.

And… he couldn't remember anything after that.

"Uh… the interviewer guy was going on about kines-something, I think? I wasn't really paying attention…"

"Probably not," Ann said grimly. "You and Mishima were both getting _sleepy_ by then."

"…What?"

Ann looked more furious than he'd seen her since they'd beat Kamoshida the first time. "The juice tasted weird. And that — interviewer person was very _particular_ about how much juice each of us got. I stopped after the first sip, and I warned Shiho in time for her not to drink any. We poured it out in the potted plant."

His poor sluggish brain managed to kick into gear. "…We were _drugged_?"

"It certainly seems that way," Ann said. "Especially if now you don't _remember_ anything."

But that— "The _school_ gave us _roofies_?"

"Apparently."

Takanashi and Sakoda hadn't said anything about what the interview had been, just that it was stupid. Had they been covering for not _remembering_? Shit.

Wait, that wasn't even the really weird part. "And now — the _Metaverse_?"

"I'm getting to that," Ann said. "…Although Shiho is going to have to take over since I guess I passed out as soon as we got in here? We were trying to mimic you guys so they wouldn't realize we weren't drugged, and it worked, but it meant I couldn't argue for long when they said I had to leave my purse in the office. At that point I started thinking we should stop pretending and run away if they tried to take us out of the school, because this was _definitely sinister_. But I didn't think you or Mishima were aware enough to run away — you weren't _asleep_ , but you were really out of it."

"Shit," Ryuji said, which really didn't seem adequate.

"Anyway they took us through the back of the office into the walled-off part of the gym, and there were a few more people there, and this — this _machine_." Ann grimaced. "I'm not — completely sure how to describe it, it was… it had these two sort of… wire antenna things? And then between them, there was… it was like a mirage, maybe? It looked like a, a hole in reality. …Which I guess it was."

"The school gave us roofies and threw us through a hole into the Metaverse," Ryuji said, not asking.

Ann snorted. "As far as _I_ can remember. Zilch after I went through the tear. Shiho?"

"Not exactly," Shiho said. "I'll tell you what I remember, but after that — I still have a lot of questions I'd like answered? You tried to explain, Ryuji, but you weren't… entirely coherent."

Ryuji _still_ didn't feel entirely coherent.


	3. Interlude: La Maupin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This interlude turned out a good bit longer than I really intended an excursion outside the main POVs to be, but oh well.

That was _five_ people involved in this now — Maki-san the secretary, the interviewer in the office who was supposedly named Satou-san, and now three more men.

And it was easier to look at them than to try to look at the — tear. Her eyes sort of slid off it when she tried to, and she just got an impression of _red_.

"What's this?" one of new men said. "Sir, I thought we'd agreed on two at a time."

"The opportunity arose and I took it," Satou (if that was really his name) said. "Maki hasn't managed to get any female subjects yet, and that might make a difference.

 _Subjects_. She was going to have to apologize to Ryuji for ever doubting his concerns. Assuming they got out of this. Ryuji had _said_ at least two boys came back, right? Shiho tried to catch Ann's eye, wondering again if they should run, but Ann was squinting at the tear.

"All right," said the other man. "Which two first?"

"Hmm? No, all of them at once. Clock is ticking on the benzos. Fukui, how does it look?"

Another man checked something on the… equipment… and then on a laptop attached to a cable which ran _into_ the tear. "Stable on Destination B, sir. If the harmonic pattern remains stable, it will shift in roughly two hundred and five minutes."

"Three hours, then," said the man who'd objected to four subjects. ( _Subjects_!) "To be safe. Kato, I'll take escort this time. Fukui, you radio the _second_ it looks like the shift might be anything other than two hundred minutes."

"Yes, sir," said Fukui. "The pattern has been stable for several days now, so we don't expect any changes, but if there is one there may be as little as fifty seconds of warning—"

"So return immediately given the signal," Satou said, sounding bored. "We know. Abe, if you're going, go."

"Yes, sir. Please wait for my signal that the area is clear." And he just… stepped into the tear.

"What the hell?" Ryuji mumbled.

Okay, if an actually drugged person was reacting, she could probably react. "What's going on?" She tried to sound… vague. "I don't understand."

They ignored her.

Abe's voice came from the laptop. "Entry site is clear. Proceed."

"Good," said Satou. "Kato, get the subjects through."

"Yes, sir."

And then he was taking Mishima's elbow and steering him to the hole in the air, and then Mishima was gone.

Shiho tried again to catch Ann's eye. They were running out of time to run away…

But…

(Ryuji didn't struggle so much as ineffectively try to tug his arm back. He didn't seem to realize he was being guided to the tear.)

What if they ran away and _failed_? All that would do was tip off Satou and company that they weren't drugged, and — what would these people do with un-drugged witnesses? She would have liked to say they couldn't do much, not if they were working with the school's cooperation, but… well. And even if they did get away, who could they go to?

Playing along looked like a safer bet. At least two people _had_ come back from this. Probably.

Shiho's turn. She tried not to look like she was about to be sick, forced herself not to flinch away from the hand on her arm—

—Stepped into the tear in reality.

It felt like freefall, like the ground was gone and she was plummeting into the void, except then her foot came down again very naturally and she was… somewhere else.

It looked like a church.

If churches were focused on giant statues of the school _volleyball coach_ instead of altars.

Shiho was still staring when Abe took her arm. "Come on, clear the entry zone." He pushed her over to join Ryuji and Mishima a few meters away.

Mishima was staring at the statue in horrified fascination. Ryuji was _glaring_ at it with more venom than she'd ever seen from him. …Also for a second he seemed to be wearing a half-mask? But then it was gone.

Before she could decide if she'd imagined it, Ann came through the tear. She shook her head a few times, then looked up at the statue and froze. "Oh," she said softly. And then her eyes rolled back and her knees buckled.

Abe caught her arm before she hit the floor and lowered her down — not gently, but at least without cracking her head on anything. "Oh, great."

"Whoa, Ann!" Ryuji said. He started in that direction and ran _right_ into Mishima. They slowly tipped over sideways onto a pew.

Shiho figured that meant she could react. "Is she okay?" she asked, kneeling by Ann's side.

Abe ignored Shiho, just checked Ann's pulse and then peeled open one of her eyes.

Satou came through the tear and almost stepped on them. "Clear out the— What happened?"

"She came through, took about a second to react, and then just dropped," Abe reported. "Pulse is normal, respiration is normal, pupils are normal." He glanced back at the boys. "They just tripped over each other."

"Interesting," Satou said. He moved past them. "We'll have to be sure to draw blood… maybe see if there's anything notable in her medical records."

As if Shiho wasn't _right there_. They really weren't worried at _all_.

…There were drugs that messed up your memory, weren't there?

Satou's eyes passed over Shiho with barely a pause to look at the boys. "Where did the blond boy get a mask?"

"What?"

Shiho looked, too. Ryuji had gotten clear of Mishima and was back to glaring balefully at the statue. He did seem to have a mask — or no, it had been a trick of the light? No, there it was again— Shiho decided it was actually disappearing and reappearing when she blinked.

"Very interesting," Satou said. He pulled out a notebook and started writing.

"Sir," Abe said. "It would be best to return the unconscious girl to the real world."

"You said her pulse and breathing were normal, right? There's no rush."

"It would be difficult to evacuate her quickly in the event of a harmonic shift or if an entity manifests," Abe said.

"Fine, take her back."

"Sir, I can't leave you here unescorted."

"Then don't take her back." Satou continued staring creepily at Ryuji, who continued to glare at the statue.

"…Yes, sir." Abe dragged Ann a few meters away from the tear, then rolled her onto her side, adjusted her arms and legs so she'd stay that way, and tipped her head back — recovery position. Then he just started… circling the room.

The more she looked around the room, the creepier it felt. All the statues of Kamoshida were starting to make her skin crawl. She tried looking at the tear instead — just like the other side, her eyes slid off it, though there wasn't any color impression from this side. The cable that came out of it ran to a tripod holding… sensors, maybe? None of them looked like regular cameras. Presumably the microphone to the other side was there, too? She spent a while trying to figure out where the controls were, exactly, but gave up.

There were a couple of spare lengths of cable lying on the floor. Or rather, she would have thought they were spares, except they all had plugs at one end and just cut off at the other. Huh.

"Suzui-san?" Mishima said plaintively, not quite in a whisper. "I don't understand what's happening." He was huddled on a pew, looking miserable.

Shiho joined him. "Me neither."

Abe was patrolling the room with a _gun_. It wasn't a very big gun — had he had it on him the whole time? That was _terrifying_.

Ryuji had evidently realized Satou was staring at him creepily and was now trying to glare back. Satou looked like he was losing interest.

"Abe, I'd like to see how he reacts to a minor manifestation."

"Sir—"

"Just see if you can lure one in. A little one."

"Sir, the luring methods are not very fine-tuned, and I'd prefer a second guard before we attempt to attract anything—"

"Abe, I didn't ask for your opinion, I asked you to get the necessary material to test this subject's response to—"

He was interrupted by a loud beep from the tripod. "Sir!" Fukui's voice cried. "The resonance is shifting!"

Satou didn't bother replying. He tried to grab Ryuji's arm, but when Ryuji jerked back from his grip he didn't pursue — just spun and ran for the tear. "Abe, get the interesting one!" he ordered, and then he was gone.

Abe made an attempt to grab Ryuji, too, but Ryuji dove away among the pews. "You need to leave!" he shouted, but he didn't pursue. He looked briefly, maybe regretfully, at Shiho and Mishima — at Ann lying on the floor — and then he was gone, too.

As little as fifty seconds of warning, Fukui had said. "We need to get back through, too," Shiho said. "Ryuji, Mishima-kun, come on — we might need to carry Ann—" And they managed it, more or less, with Shiho holding her under the arms and Mishima with her ankles—

But then was a _twang_ like a snapping guitar string, only so deep _everything_ vibrated with it. The tear _flashed_. The cable going from the tripod through the tear fell to the floor, severed.

"Oh, no," Shiho whispered.

And then a… person? A _something_ , in armor with red wings, just _appeared_ between them and the tear. "Who intrudes on King Kamoshida's castle?" it demanded.

"That's a Heavenly Punisher," Ryuji said, sounding more awake than he had since the juice. " _Run_!"

She caught a glimpse of him, and— The mask was sticking around, now, and his gym uniform had been replaced by black leather with a red tie and yellow gloves. What the— But no, running was a good idea, if she could coordinate enough with Mishima—

"Seiten Taisei!" Ryuji yelled, and a… figure with an aggressive yellow mohawk materialized. " _Megaton Raid_!"

The mohawk thing lunged at the winged thing, striking at it with a spiked pole — there was a flash of light that had her blinking away spots, and — the winged thing was gone.

"…Oh, right," Ryuji said. "Guess I'm a lot stronger now, but— Crap, it's still going to have friends, we should go — try to stick close—"

"What the hell is going on?" Mishima asked. Shiho guessed the adrenaline had woken him up some, too.

"I have no _fucking_ idea!" Ryuji said, backing out of the church, waving them to follow him. "But we're in a place called the Metaverse, in a castle created by Kamoshida's, uh, the way he sees the world — his view is so distorted it created this whole… this whole… I dunno how to explain it, the Metaverse is based on what everyone thinks, when one person is thinking really hard and really wrong they can make a Palace which looks like how they think the world is."

That sounded like fiction. But.

"How do you _know_?" she asked, rather than argue about the reality they were in. "Wait, is _this_ why you were so freaked out about Kamoshida?"

"No — well, yes — it's all kind of the same thing, but—" Ryuji backed right into a hulking inhuman guard creature. " _Shit_!"

The creature _shattered_ into a quartet of deformed horse things. They peppered Ryuji with gusts of wind that made him hiss, until he called the mohawk thing — Seiten Taisei — and _zapped_ them into nothingness.

"Ugh, ow, I hate that," Ryuji said. "We gotta find a safe room, I know there's one around here _somewhere_ — shit, I can't _think_ —"

"You were probably drugged," Shiho said. "In the juice. Where were you saying you learned about all this?"

"I dunno if I should say it outside a safe room, I never got how much information could get back to the Palace ruler…" Ryuji led them into a wider gallery filled with portraits of Kamoshida. Some of them were shirtless. "Okay, the libraries were around in here… dammit, I think we've come too far…"

"Who's causing a disturbance in my castle?"

"Oh, _shit_!"

Another troop of… guard things had come around the corner, and in the middle of them was… was…

"Mr. Kamoshida?" Mishima blurted.

"Be respectful of your king!" one of the guard-things ordered.

"Not exactly," Ryuji said. "He's Kamoshida's Shadow, and he is the king of this castle." He fell back a few steps to stand right in front of Shiho and Mishima and the unconscious Ann.

"Why is he dressed — _not_ dressed — _why_?"

"Because he's a perv, I guess?"

Fine. "And the things with him…?"

"Other Shadows. Not sure what kind they'd turn into to fight… there are a lot of them which isn't a good thing… and I dunno if Asmodeus'd go down as easy as the Heavenly Punisher did even if I am so much stronger than I was…"

"Silence, ape!" yelled… Kamoshida's Shadow. King Kamoshida?

"Aw, c'mon, I've never even _talked_ to you in this timeline!" Ryuji complained. Timeline? "Do you even know who I am?"

One of the guard-things took a swipe at him with its spear. Ryuji ducked out of the way but then ran into a wall. He swayed, but managed to get up.

The adrenaline must be wearing off. This was bad. Okay, if fighting wasn't going to be possible— "I'm sorry, your Majesty, there seems to have been a misunderstanding. We didn't come here on purpose. Just leave us and we'll be out of here in no time." She hoped.

The king squinted at her. "Oh… hello." He sounded less hostile, at least? "You're not the prettiest I've seen, but," his eyes ran over her slowly, "not bad. You, I could allow here."

Shiho's skin crawled. (This. This was what she'd be dealing with, for the sake of volleyball.) But if they just kept him happy, if they could get _out_ of here—

 _"It's all about that, isn't it? Are you pretty enough for them, accomplished enough for them,_ satisfying _enough for them to let you have what you need?"_

"And— Oh." He was looking at Ann, now. He _licked his lips_. "Well now. Leave her with me, and I might let the rest of you go."

" _Fuck_ no!" Ryuji shouted, but Shiho could barely hear him.

_"Forget about what they want from you. You don't need to trade all of yourself away for scraps—"_

"—I'm worth more than that," Shiho whispered.

Her face felt like it was on fire.

(Ryuji lunged over to catch Ann as Shiho released her, and ended up sitting on the floor.)

"I'll take what I need with my own hands! To my side, _La Maupin_!"

Shiho ripped her mask free, and her Persona materialized in front of her — a tall figure with voluminous, lacy sleeves and pantaloons, wearing a hat with a feather, and holding a sword.

Shiho pointed at Kamoshida. " _Kouha_!"

King Kamoshida turned tail and ran, accompanied by most of his guards. The remainder turned into _Bedside Brutes_ and _Twilight Prostitutes_ , and between them La Maupin and Seiten Taisei took them down. 

La Maupin disappeared, and Shiho stood shaking. Ryuji was on hands and knees. Mishima was sitting on the floor, Ann lying next to him.

"Okay," Ryuji said, lurching to his feet. "Back the way we came, look for a door on the right. You're gonna — awakening a Persona takes it out of you."

"Okay," Shiho echoed. She… wasn't sure whether she felt drained or not. Maybe more _wired_ , enough that she got Ann into an over-the-shoulder carry by herself — which was good, because the adrenaline was definitely wearing off for both boys.

Ryuji managed to lead the way to a room he said was a safe room. "They can't follow us in here," he said. "I don't know how well this'll work, we always recovered _outside_ the Palace, but crashing _outside_ a safe room's definitely a terrible idea, and no phone means no app so we can't just _leave_ …" He slumped into a chair and leaned on the table.

Shiho got Ann settled on a convenient couch. "Who's _we_? Since when — what is going on?"

"We's the Phantom Thieves," Ryuji said. "Including Panther — her — except she doesn't remember. And when — when is… about a year from now. In the future."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [La Maupin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_d%27Aubigny).


	4. Farther In

So, the school hadn't given them roofies and thrown them into the Metaverse. People working with the school's approval had given them roofies and _abandoned_ them in the Metaverse.

Close enough.

He was really pissed off that he couldn't even _remember_ any of it, though. Talk about adding insult to injury.

"So," Shiho said. "The whole… year in the future thing?"

"Well, uh…" Damn stupid Drugged Ryuji just _had_ to mention the time travel. …Although explaining the background without mentioning it would have been difficult. "Um… Y'know, Mishima'll want to know all this, too, should we try to wake him up so we only have to explain everything once?"

Shiho rolled her eyes at him, but acknowledged he had a point.

The good news was Mishima woke up… fairly quickly, so the drugs were probably wearing off. The bad news really shouldn't have been news and was that Mishima both couldn't remember how they'd gotten there and had no idea the Metaverse even existed, so that was a double layer of shock all at once. Really a freakout was completely justified, however inconvenient it was. 

(Ryuji was also completely justified in pointing out that he'd _said_ the interview was sketchy. Ann was probably correct that it wasn't helping, but he _had_ said so.)

After Mishima calmed down, Shiho summarized the story she'd told Ann and Ryuji. Then Ryuji shared a somewhat more coherent version of his explanation of the Metaverse and Palaces, including that using their real names might be a bad idea, so he was Skull and Ann was Panther. Ann suggested that Shiho could be codenamed Blaze, because the patterned edge of her mask suggested fire — personally Ryuji would have called that a sun pattern, but whatever, neither of them was Yusuke. It probably wasn't a good idea to throw Mishima's name around, either, so Ryuji suggested he should go by Fan for now, to be changed when he got his own Persona.

Mishima looked gratified. "You think I will?"

"If you hadn't been drugged, I bet you would've when Blaze did," Ryuji said truthfully. Because Futaba might call Mishima an NPC, but he'd had enough guts to make the Phansite and he'd reformed his own corruption when pushed on it — he was as much hero material as the rest of them.

(Besides, it wasn't like they'd ever seen someone given the opportunity to develop a Persona _not_ do it.)

Mishima smiled. "Thanks, Ryu— Skull."

"Just telling the truth. So, uh… the future." Ryuji looked at Ann hopefully.

" _Really_?" Ann said. "Really? You're trying to make me explain this?"

"Your memories are probably fresher?" Ryuji tried.

"Oh, fine. But I'm starting with the track team thing."

She did, although she generously left out exactly what Kamoshida had said to provoke Ryuji. Then she moved on to the physical abuse of all the volleyball team members, including Mishima, and then on to the creepy sexual stuff the female players in general got.

After visibly thinking it over, she admitted that Kamoshida had taken particular notice of her even though she wasn't on the team — and that he'd used her and Shiho as leverage against each other.

"And that's the background," Ann said. "Things really got started when our friend — I'm not sure how much we should be avoiding names in a safe room, so I'm just going to call him Joker — came to Tokyo and transferred to Shuujin. He had to transfer because he was wrongfully convicted of assault on — a powerful politician. And when he got to town, a weird app mysteriously showed up on his phone. The Metaverse Navigator. That's how we got here, no… reality-tearing machines."

"That's… very strange," Mishima said.

Ryuji shrugged. "And it installed itself on your phone after you'd been in the Metaverse once, and came back if you tried to delete it. It wasn't a normal app."

"I wonder if they know about it," Ann said. "They made sure we couldn't _bring_ our phones… Although I guess if they had the app it would be a lot easier to get in and they wouldn't have to take over part of the gym for their machine?" She frowned. "Speaking of which, Skull, you don't remember that being there last time, do you? I never spent a whole lot of time around the gym, but it' just… obvious enough I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it."

"No, that's new," Ryuji agreed. "Something else new? _Akechi_ is in school here." Which actually— "Dammit, why didn't I realize something was going on, that should've been a dead giveaway—"

"Who?" Shiho asked.

"A Persona-user working for the bad guys," Ann said. "…Uh, not for Kamoshida, even Akechi has more class than that. We're getting ahead of ourselves."

Mishima cleared his throat. "So if you got in and out before with a phone app, and none of us has a phone…"

Yeah Ryuji was trying not to worry too hard about that. "Hopefully back the way we came. Which, uh, is going to be a whole 'nother problem, if we get on that subject—"

"Story first," Mishima agreed. "So long as we have _some_ idea."

"I'll try to be quick," Ann said. "Joker and Skull accidentally triggered the app and were transported to this Palace, but of course they had no idea what was going on. Fortunately they met Mona, who did—" She broke off, turning to Ryuji. "Of course, that's why you chased that cat into traffic!"

"Across traffic," Ryuji said. "I was injured by the cat, not the traffic. And yeah, it looked like Mona from a distance. Had an even worse attitude, though."

"No cat would react well to being grabbed like that." Ann turned to the other two. "Mona looks like a cat in the real world. In the Metaverse he looks, well, still like a cat, but a… cartoony, anthropomorphic cat. He said he was really a human who got trapped in that form, but, um, never really explained how the Metaverse did that."

Way more likely the Metaverse had just fried some cat's brain into thinking it was a human. Also basically functioning like a human. Did kind of suck for Morgana either way.

"Mona explained about Palaces, and how if you stole the Treasure — a sort of… central focus — in the right way, the person's distorted thinking would collapse and they'd have a change of heart. And we, um. We decided we needed to do it, to stop Kamoshida."

Ryuji guessed Ann was trying to omit Shiho and the roof, and he didn't blame her, but it would kind of leave Shiho wondering why she wasn't _in_ the rest of the story. "You were really badly hurt, Blaze," he said. "Like… months in the hospital hurt." He rushed on before she could ask for details, "Also he was threatening to have me and Joker expelled — _and_ Fan, I'm still not sure why _that_ was…"

"Did you want me to tell the story or not?" Ann asked. "So… right. We infiltrated the Palace, fought the Shadow, and stole the Treasure, and Kamoshida confessed everything. And then we just… There were so many other corrupt people who no one was doing anything about, so… we didn't stop."

Ann explained about how the Phantom Thieves had become _discussed_ , about the Phan-Site and Mementos missions. (She only touched on Mishima's involvement, but he still looked happy.) "But we kept doing big targets, too, and with those, everything… everything started to come back to a politician called Shido, and a big group of people who were conspiring to put him in power."

" _That's_ who Akechi works for," Ryuji added, because yeah, even Akechi had more class than working for Kamoshida. "…And unfortunately that's probably also who the people who threw us in here work for. We know they were interested in the Metaverse, I just don't remember anything like _this_. I don't understand how us coming back could have caused this."

"How _did_ you come back?" Shiho asked.

"I'm getting to that," Ann said. "…Sort of. We beat Shido, we changed his heart, but then…" She explained about the overwhelming apathy, after the election. How they'd decided to seek answers in the bottom of Mementos.

How they'd lost. What had happened back at the surface. How they'd _disappeared_. And then…

"And then I woke up _here_ ," Ann said. "Or, not exactly— It's not like I _don't_ remember the stuff leading up to walking in here, and a lot of it _didn't_ happen before… I don't know. It's confusing."

"I though I get sent back to right after I met Kamoshida," Ryuji said. "That sort of made sense? I mean, it didn't explain how it happened, but that was kind of a point it made sense to send me back to? And I thought the same thing might happen with Panther, sent back to when _you_ met Kamoshida, except… Except I guess that _when_ doesn't exist anymore."

"I didn't really _meet_ him yet," Ann said. "I've been talked to as part of a group, but I didn't really meet him. Maybe going in the Palace substitutes?"

It certainly served to tell you more about them than any fakey school introduction. "Huh." So Ryuji's theory about meeting Kamoshida was holding up? Cool.

That still didn't explain _why the hell they went back in time_ , though. Or why things had changed at Shuujin _before they did anything_.

"Maybe Mona will have some more ideas," he said finally. "Or Oracle. Or Joker."

"Yeah," Ann sighed. "So… do you two have any more questions? Or should we move on to what _now_?"

"I do have more questions," Shiho said. "But… I think they should wait."

"Yeah," Mishima said. 

"How are you feeling?" Ann asked. "Skull?"

Ryuji got up — much steadier on his feet — and paced back and forth a few times. "Better. Not bad." 

"All right I guess," Mishima said, though he hadn't tried to stand up yet. "Kind of thirsty."

"If we'd known we'd be coming in here we could have grabbed some Second Maid from the vending machine," Ryuji snorted. "No, wait, we couldn't have, because fucking Akechi bought them all."

"Yeah, we don't have anything, sorry," Ann said. "But you don't quite get hungry or thirsty the same way in the Metaverse, so it'll probably go away if you don't pay attention."

Mishima didn't look convinced. "If you can metabolize drugs here you can get thirsty here."

That sounded worryingly logical, and now that he mentioned it Ryuji's mouth was feeling kinda dry, too… "Let's just get out of here. With me and Panther awake making it back to the chapel shouldn't be a problem, just… those conspiracy guys." Probably-conspiracy guys. Bad guys, whatever. "They'll probably still be there."

"Yeah," Mishima said. "With their secret… dimension-ripping device, _after_ the drugs wore off. We'll be _witnesses_! What are they going to do with us?"

Well, if Akechi tried to find their Shadows to give them mental shutdowns, he'd be in for a frustrating trip… except for Mishima, at the moment. Maybe he shouldn't mention that part. Besides, Ryuji was sure the conspiracy couldn't go around killing _everyone_ who'd seen _anything_.

Mostly sure.

Probably.

"Could we pretend the drugs _haven't_ worn off?" Ann suggested. "Because… I don't know, drugs work differently in the Metaverse?"

Mishima shook his head. "If they've done this before, they should know how they work. And S— And Blaze said they said something about there being a time limit on the drugs, right?"

"Right. Damn."

Shiho frowned, her forehead creasing. "No matter how powerful they are they can't _want_ to have to explain four students just… vanishing out of a high school. I mean, my parents aren't always the most… they don't always listen to me, but they would definitely notice me disappearing and they wouldn't let it go."

Ryuji flinched, thinking of his mom's reaction if he just _disappeared_. She would _not_ let it go. …Considering how far the conspiracy reached she could get in a lot of trouble not letting it go.

"They could say we ran away together," Mishima said. "But… they weren't _subtle_ about recruiting us for the supposed interview. We were in the middle of the lunch crowd."

"So if they're being smart, they won't just… dispose of us," Ann concluded. "Especially if we just agree to do everything they tell us to do. They might want to get rid of us _later_ , just to be safe, but… not right away. So… just walk out, agree to be quiet and sign anything they want us to sign, and deal with whatever's next later?"

"What do we say to them, though?" Shiho asked. "About how we… They obviously know it's dangerous here, right? And we got left here all alone, unarmed, but then we just walk out?"

Hmm. "We got lucky and didn't get killed by Shadows, passed out, got lucky and didn't get killed by Shadows while we were unconscious for hours, woke up, and got lucky and didn't get killed by Shadows on the way out…" Ryuji shook his head. "Yeah, they wouldn't believe that. No one would believe that. Are we gonna have to admit to a Persona?"

"I think that's what they _want_ ," Shiho said. "Maybe not by name, but… the guy was really interested in how we responded to being here. In you in particular, Skull, because of your mask appearing a bit."

Joy.

"Well," Mishima said slowly, "if they already know there's something weird about him… we could admit that? No details, imply we don't understand any details or even what happened exactly, just — Skull did something weird?"

"That's a terrible idea," Ann said.

"Better or worse than them figuring out we're hiding something about what happened, so maybe we aren't fully cooperating after all?"

That would be bad. So, what if he admitted to something? What would happen?

They wouldn't let it go. Like, he didn't think they'd keep him prisoner as long as he seemed to be cooperating, but they wouldn't let it go. They'd want to know what he could do. When he wasn't drugged he couldn't keep his clothes from changing he was pretty sure, but he could just not summon his Persona, right? Claim he didn't remember how he'd done whatever he'd done.

But if they'd talked to Akechi at all they should know how Personas were summoned. He didn't think someone else pulling his mask off would have an effect, but if they made him remove it himself could he keep from summoning?

Then again if they'd talked to Akechi he could probably have told them sedating people wasn't a good strategy for awakening Personas. Maybe they hadn't talked to Akechi. Or Akechi was lying to them because he didn't want any competition.

If they saw Seiten Taisei, would they realize it couldn't possibly be a new Persona?

If they realized he was lying, what would they do?

Ann was right, it was a _terrible_ idea.

"I think unless you guys _want_ me to take on basically undercover work, we should stick with trying to pretend to be too stupid to understand how we survived," he said finally. "Like, if we absolutely have to say something, but… I don't think I'd be very good at undercover."

"No he would _not_ ," Ann said forcefully, which might have been hurtful if he hadn't been thinking roughly the same thing.

"Okay," Mishima said. "I'm just worried they'll realize we're hiding something."

"So am I," Ann said, "but not enough to send Skull undercover."

"Like you'd be any better," Ryuji muttered. "Come on, let's just get out of here." And get something to drink, he didn't say. He really was feeling thirsty now. He blamed Mishima.

The trip back to the chapel wasn't bad. They didn't manage to sneak up on Shadows they encountered, but with both Ryuji and Ann fighting they pretty much stomped the War-Hungry Horsemen and Dirty Two-Horned Beasts anyway. The tear in reality — or unreality, from this side? Well, whatever it was, it was right where Shiho said to expect it.

Mishima knelt to poke at the tripod thing near the tear. "Do you suppose this thing records at all? It must not be able to transmit without a cable or they wouldn't bother with them, but it might record…"

"Recording anything in the Metaverse is harder than it sounds," Ryuji said. "…But we should probably make sure. Just lightning it, do you think?"

A few Zios later, whatever device was on the tripod was _thoroughly_ dead, and they were out of delays.

"Ready to face the evil scientist goons?" Ryuji said reluctantly.

"As I'll ever be…"

"Okay. Remember, we're very dazed and we don't know what happened."

Ryuji stepped into the tear—

—And stepped out on the other side.

There were no evil scientists or goons waiting for him. 

Probably relating to how he wasn't in the gym. 

He was, in fact, still in the Metaverse.

He moved out of the way as the others followed him through, looking around. "So, uh, if you can't tell, something's gone wrong. We're still in the Metaverse."

" _Shit_ ," Mishima said.

"But… this doesn't look the same?" Shiho said nervously. "This is more…"

"The dungeons?" Ann suggested. 

Ryuji shook his head. "No, me and Joker went to the dungeons, they had the same… _look_ as the rest of the castle, this is…"

This was a tile floor and peeling beige paint on the walls and the barred doors that lined the hallway. There were mesh-covered windows high on the wall opposite the… cells, and flickering fluorescent lights in steel cages above. 

This looked like a shitty jail.

"Shadows!" Mishima hissed, but not in time to keep the guard-Shadow from getting the drop on them. 

Ryuji hadn't ever tried to memorize the various Shadows they encountered — he'd left that to Morgana, and Akira, and Futaba. _This_ one, though—

"That's the rat coffin thing!" Ann shouted. 

"The _what_?" Shiho said, and then she got turned into a rat.

"Seriously?!" Mishima shrieked.

Ryuji couldn't have said whether or not the rat coffin Shadow was the same strength as its counterparts in Futaba's Palace. It was a lot stronger than what they'd just been fighting in the castle, but not strong compared to Seiten Taisei and Hecate. Instead of whatever it was it had summoned in the pyramid, it summoned Zealous Messengers who obnoxiously resisted electric attacks.

The Shadows yelled something about 'informing the warden' of this, but honestly Ryuji wasn't paying a lot of attention.

With the fight over, Shiho recovered. "You didn't say anything about being turned into _rats_!"

"I, uh. Kinda forgot that part," Ryuji admitted. "It's weird as hell, but not any more dangerous than the rest of the stuff they pull… Besides it's just that one kind that does it. And the devices on the cruise ship. I didn't think we were likely to run into it."

And he was pretty sure they _hadn't_ run into it in _in Kamoshida's Palace_.

"Where the hell are we? Someone's jail or prison Palace, obviously, but— Is this still Shuujin? Not that I don't understand someone seeing Shuujin as a prison, but is it even possible to have more than one Palace in the same place?"

"They can definitely overlap," Ann said slowly. "Since Kaneshiro's was _all of Shibuya_ , and Madarame's was in Shibuya, and Mementos was… well, I'm not sure how to describe where Mementos is, but — they can overlap. I guess there's no reason there couldn't be more than one piled on the same place?"

"I guess. Although I'm not sure seeing Shuujin as a prison really qualifies as a distortion."

Ann shrugged. "Distorted enough, I guess. We could probably figure out who it belongs to if we poked around more, but that's not exactly at the top of my priority list."

"No."

"This must have been what the… harmonic whatever shifting you said they were monitoring was about," Mishima said. "It's not that the tear closes — the destination changes."

"And they implied there were multiple destinations, didn't they," Shiho agreed. "They'd numbered them. So the destination changing is just… a thing that happens, and eventually it'll change back."

They all looked back at the tear. There was another… device on a tripod, with cut-off cables, sitting not far from it. Ryuji summoned Seiten Taisei and destroyed that one, too.

"More Shadows!" Ann said, and at least they didn't get ambushed.

No rat-coffin thing this time, though he thought the dog-headed and sack-carrying Shadows — fine, Bearers of the Scales and Envoys of Slumber — had been in the pyramid, too. Ryuji took out the bag-carriers before anyone got knocked out, and then they finished off the dog-headed ones. Not too bad. Just enough to be stressful.

"Didn't the dog-head ones do one-shots?" Ann asked anxiously. "If we got hit with one of those we'd be in trouble, without Joker or any medicines…"

"That's a good point… Should we go back to the castle?" Ryuji asked unhappily. "Since we at least know about what to expect and where the safe rooms are there?"

"I guess we'd better," Ann said, sounding just as unhappy. "How are we going to tell when the portal is going to right place?"

"It… might have looked a little different?" Shiho offered. "I remember thinking before I didn't get a color impression from the tear from this side, but this time I think it looked sort of… yellow?"

They all turned to look at the tear, or try to. It did not want to be looked at. Ryuji did sort of get a feeling of… white, maybe? Silver?

"Like that? Is that colorless?" Ann wondered. 

"I'm… not sure?"

"Do we give it a try?" Ryuji asked, looking over the group. Shrugs all around. "All right then…"

He was hoping for evil conspiratorial scientists, but would have settled for the damn chapel.

Instead, he got an unfamiliar big fancy room with a marble floor and a high ceiling and a _fountain_ with a _statue of Kamoshida_ in it.

"Aw, shit," Ryuji said. He destroyed the now-familiar tripod device as the other three followed him. "What do you think, Panther — _third_ Palace in Shuujin?"


	5. Interlude: Eulenspiegel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Yes, there used to be a note here about the chapter being a redo, but since the first version was up for, what, a week? I figure it's causing more confusion than it's resolving at this point.]

Yuuki couldn't decide whether he wished he'd listened to Ryuji about the sketchiness of the interview. On the one hand, Ryuji had definitely been right, and they were now trapped in a series of bizarre dreamscapes of other people's delusions about the school. On the other hand, well… look what he got to be a part of. This was dangerous and not knowing how they were going to get out was scary, but it was still the most exciting thing he'd ever done.

This new Palace was nicer than the jail, which had just been ugly. Hard to say how it compared to the castle yet.

"You've got to be kidding me," Ann-san said. She eyed the statue in the fountain dubiously. "Are we sure this isn't some other part of Kamoshida's Palace?"

The statue was holding a volleyball in one hand and an Olympic medal in the other. It had an expression that was probably supposed to be dignified but which looked more like indigestion to Yuuki.

"I think if the castle had a statue of him in a fountain it would be shirtless," Ryuji said. " _Minimum_. And probably surrounded by naked women statues."

"Ew."

"Yeah. This is someone else. Someone who _likes_ Kamoshida, which narrows it down… not nearly as much as it should."

Yuuki looked around. It was a good-sized room, larger than the chapel had been, but probably not bigger than four classrooms put together. There were a lot of columns, and the ceiling between them was in vaulted arches. An area at the center around the fountain was clear of columns.

No Shadows in sight. Yet.

Yuuki weighed being a nuisance versus his increasing discomfort, and went ahead and asked, "Do you think the water in the fountain is safe to drink?" Ordinarily he wouldn't have considered drinking out of a decorative fountain like this — it was probably chlorinated and might be contaminated with practically anything — but he really was getting _very thirsty_.

"Ummm…" said Ryuji. "Panther?"

"I was going to say ask Skull…"

"There's not some sort of… don't eat or drink things from the magic place prohibition?" Yuuki asked. "Like, eat and you can't leave?"

"No, that's not a thing," Ryuji said. "We've eaten stuff from Palaces before — devil fruit, wasn't it?"

"Or sometimes Joker would get things from _Shadows_ ," Ann-san said. "That nasty 'gravy' stuff, remember? And the, uh, 'odd morsels'? Those would mess with you a bit in a fight, but they didn't have any effect after you left. _That's_ not an issue."

"So… what would the issue be, then?" Shiho-san asked. "It doesn't seem too likely to be contaminated — what would contaminate it?"

Yuuki shrugged. " _I_ don't know. How does _anything_ work here?"

"…Fair enough."

"I still think we _shouldn't_ be getting thirsty at all," Ryuji said. "But we could drink from it and then Panther could do healing, just in case there was something wrong?"

"Better than standing here talking about it forever…" Ann-san said.

That seemed to be the general consensus. Yuuki nerved himself up and left the shelter of the columns for the open area around the fountain. He dipped his hands in — it _felt_ like regular water — then cupped them together to raise water to his mouth.

"How is it?" Ryuji asked. He was very invested for someone who kept insisting they shouldn't be thirsty.

Yuuki swallowed. "It doesn't taste like anything. Sort of weirdly tasteless, maybe. But it's wet." His mouth and throat felt better already. He went back for more.

"Wait, _shit_ —" Ryuji said suddenly — and hands like stone closed on Yuuki's shoulders.

He was dragged forward. His shins knocked painfully against the fountain's rim and his feet hit the water briefly before he was lifted into the air by a crushing grip on his upper arms. Yuuki finally managed to look up to see that he'd been grabbed by the _statue of Kamoshida_.

"Mi— Fan!" Ann-san yelled. "Let him — hell!"

"Intruders!" a new voice yelled. "Delinquents! Saboteurs!"

Yuuki painfully craned his neck — no worse than the grip on his arms — to see a bunch of Shadows in hard hats had appeared out of _nowhere_. They fell apart into… weird bald eyeless one-legged men who apparently shrugged off Ann-san's fire attack. Ryuji's electric bolt seemed to have more impact, but it _jumped_ from enemy to enemy to—

Yuuki's vision went white.

* * *

He woke up quickly, at least compared to the emergence from a drugged stupor that had been his _last_ awakening. Possibly it was related to how his position managed to be even more uncomfortable than face-down on a hard table. He was — kneeling? On his knees, anyway, on a hard, _rough_ surface, with someone — or something — hanging on to the back of his shirt to keep him from falling over. He was still off-balance, and he tried to—

His wrists were tied to his ankles.

Yuuki woke up the rest of the way in a hurry.

He was kneeling on a floor made of roughly hewn sandstone blocks, under another many-vaulted ceiling. There was a trio of big windows in the wall in front of him. One of them was filled in with stained-glass, depicting… he wasn't sure what it was depicting. Possibly a volleyball scene?

Several Shadows in mostly-human-looking, hard-hat-wearing form were looming around. Yuuki guessed it was another one of them that was holding him upright.

"Supreme High Overseer," one of the Shadows said. "The delinquent is awake!"

_What._

Footsteps — not exactly louder than the noise the other Shadows made when they walked, but… _more_ , somehow. And—

It was Principal Kobayakawa. Principal Kobayakawa — with yellow eyes, wearing a tuxedo, and carrying a giant roll of paper and a _riding crop_.

(…Pretty mild compared to Shiho-san's description of Kamoshida's Shadow, but Yuuki hadn't actually seen Kamoshida's Shadow. Or couldn't remember seeing it, anyway. He guessed the drugs had done him one favor.)

"Is this the offender?" Shadow Kobayakawa demanded.

The Shadow (presumably a Shadow) let go of Yuuki's shirt, only to grab his _hair_ and tug his head up. "Yes, Supreme High Overseer! He was caught _horsing around_ in the Most Noble Hall of Volleyball!"

That. Probably wasn't any worse than turning the gym into a church?

He sort of wanted to object to its describing _getting a drink_ as 'horsing around', but expecting any kind of logic out of the Shadow was probably unrealistic.

Shadow Kobayakawa prodded at Yuuki's face with the riding crop. "It doesn't look like much. Are you sure it's a student?"

" _Yes_ , I'm a student," Yuuki snapped, peeved despite himself. The application process had been an ordeal. "And my test scores were in the top third of _admitted_ students." For which he had studied _very hard_ , thank you.

Kobayakawa squinted at him, then set the riding crop aside on a pile of building stones and unrolled the papers — blueprints — and squinted at those. Back at Yuuki — back at the blueprints — shuffle through a few more blueprint sheets— "Oh," he said finally. "Right. One of _you_."

"What— What do you mean, one of you?" Yuuki asked. "One of _who_?" He couldn't possibly know about the Phantom Thieves, they hadn't even been _founded_ — one of Ryuji's friends?

"One of the spares," Kobayakawa said dismissively.

"The… spares?" Yuuki echoed. "What… what does that mean?"

"There are students I expect will serve well in building the school ever higher," Kobayakawa said. "And then we need to fill out the seats."

Need to fill the— "What's _that_ supposed to mean? I worked to get in here the same as anyone else! I had to—"

"Well, we couldn't fill the seats with any old rabble," Kobayakawa said. "That wouldn't do at all. We have certain standards to maintain. But that doesn't make you more than a placeholder — and a good thing, too, if this is how you're going to comport yourself!"

Placeholder. _Nobody_. Yuuki gritted his teeth. "That's not fair! You can't just — write off half your students without ever giving them a chance!"

Kobayakawa looked down his nose at Yuuki. "Stupid brat… Of course we can. We must! Shuujin Academy must stretch ever higher — build our reputation higher — our connections _higher_ —" Kobayakawa spun away to gesture wildly out the windows at — Tokyo. "Even now I'm making connections to reach _higher_ — and you're saying we should slow down for the sake of some chaff we picked up with the grain?"

 _"What_ connections _do you suppose he's talking about?"_ someone whispered. Yuuki tried to turn to see if someone was standing beside him and got prodded with the riding crop again. _"The people who threw you in here and left you for dead?"_

"You're _nothing_ ," Kobayakawa said scornfully. "Accept it and let yourself be disposed of neatly."

 _"Maybe the lecherous predator at the center of his_ Most Noble Hall _?"_

Who was _saying_ that? It was almost enough to halfway distract Yuuki from how Kobayakawa might have just proposed _killing him_. But not quite. "Sorry, let myself _what_?"

"We expect a certain quality even from our placeholders," Kobayakawa said. "Clearly you don't qualify. You're unsightly and disagreeable. We have higher standards in this tower."

_"Oh, do they."_

Yuuki yanked futilely at the bonds on his wrists. His _face_ was itching suddenly.

"Take him… hmm. Take him to one of the unfinished sections, and put him out of sight inside a wall."

What. _What_.

Before Koobayakawa could expand further on his plan to _bury Yuuki alive_ , a Shadow ran in and bowed. "Supreme High Overseer! There are more delinquents roaming the tower vandalizing things!"

Kobayakawa scowled. "What _pests_. All of you—"

A door crashed open. " _There_ he is!" Ryuji shouted. "And — yeah, that's Kobayakawa."

"Fan, are you all right?" Shiho-san called.

Yuuki twisted to look at them. All three of them looked somewhat the worse for wear. How far had they had to come after him? "I'm… I'm all right?"

"Blaze, try to get him loose," Ryuji said. "We'll cover you."

"We'll try not to electrocute him this time," Ann-san said. Ryuji gave her a dirty look.

"His eyes—" Shiho-san started.

"Yeah, don't worry about that."

"Delinquents!" Kobayakawa shouted. "Rule-breakers! _Embarrassments to the school_! I will _throw you out_ of my ivory tower!"

"This tower isn't even made of ivory!" Ryuji shouted, and all three charged.

Shiho-san skidded to her knees next to Yuuki and reached behind him. "They've got you in zip-ties. That seems like it doesn't fit the theme. I have a sword, let me see if I can get that—"

"Hoodlums!" Kobayakawa raved. "You're nothing. You're all _nothing_!"

 _"But we know the truth, don't we? We see them for who they really are. We'll show_ everyone _what they really are."_

His wrists came free, and Yuuki _clawed_ at his face.

"Show them, _Eulenspiegel_!"

" _That's_ what the eyes mean!" Ryuji shouted from somewhere.

When Yuuki's vision cleared, he was two meters off the ground, sitting on the back of a… big… semi-transparent… bird… thing. He knew without looking that there was a hint of a humanoid figure standing on the bird behind him.

Kobayakawa made an undignified noise and bolted from the room, leaving behind enforcer-Shadows which were breaking apart into… sword-carrying demons and hairy long-tongued things— _Chivalrous Fiends_ with _Dancing Witches_ , Eulenspiegel told him. 

"Didn't we get the tongue ones in the casino?" Ann-san said, sounding dismayed. "Even with Hecate I would rather not be fighting casino-level Shadows right now—"

"I think so but I'm sure the red ones were in the bank, they should be a lot weaker—"

"I think they're… not dramatically different in strength?" Yuuki said. "From each other? The Dancing Witches, the tongue ones, they _are_ stronger, just not that much, but the important, the important thing is that physical or gun attacks are, are a bad idea?"

"Analytical abilities," Ryuji said. " _Score_."

Ann-san's fire didn't do a whole lot to the Dancing Witches, either, but they went down hard under Shiho-san's light magic and Ryuji's electricity. One of them hit Shiho-san pretty hard with a curse first, though, and Ann-san had to heal her. The supposedly chivalrous fiends mostly just beat on everyone a lot.

Eulenspiegel unfortunately didn't seem intended to do a lot of direct damage. Instead Yuuki had to be satisfied with trying to make enemies _dizzy_ or, once, _despairing_. 

And then they were gone, fading away, and Yuuki's feet were hitting the floor. He swayed, and Ryuji caught him.

"Told you you'd get a Persona," he said, with forced brightness. "Sorry it took so long to find you. And about shocking you earlier — I didn't realize the spell wouldn't avoid you automatically."

"It's fine," Yuuki said. "How long has it been? I was unconscious for a while…"

"We don't know," Ann-san said. "Probably hours." She gave him a critical look. "I don't _think_ you've got any lingering damage from the shock… Maybe awakening your Persona healed it? Does that happen?"

"No idea," Ryuji said. "Like I said, I am really missing that damn cat about now."

"My Persona," Yuuki said. "I couldn't… I didn't have any weapons? And all my magic seemed kind of… indirect? And weak?"

"You'll get stronger," Ann-san said confidently. "I get that boys like to hit things, but picking at them with ailments gets results, and the analysis — if we'd shot at those tongue things it might have been _bad_. We've been checking every chest we find but still no revival beads…"

"Oh…" He guessed it made sense. Being smart about things _was_ his preferred approach…

"You don't look very good," Shiho-san said.

"Yeah, he's probably about to crash," Ryuji said. He turned to Yuuki. "Do you think you could get a read on a safe room near here? We found one back near the fountain but that was like three floors down from here."

He… could. Eulenspiegel could, even without summoning him the whole way. "There's… out the door you came in, across the… through a central room with stairs in it, then into another room on the other side of the tower, and… I think there's a safe room through there." He frowned. "There are a couple Shadows in the way. Not as strong as what we just beat."

Ryuji gave him a hopeful look. "…Think we could set up an ambush?"

"Skull—"

"Just if we have to fight to get past one!"

They ambushed one construction-worker-looking Shadow who turned into two more _Chivalrous Fiends_ , and successfully avoided the others. And — safe room.

The safe room blurred back and forth between being a classroom and being a marble balcony looking out on… pretty much exactly what you should be seeing if you looked out a second-floor window. Yuuki slumped onto a bench without being prompted, and then sort of tipped over sideways. The adrenaline had blocked it out pretty well, but… he had to admit he was fading fast.

"Okay, _four_ Personas!" Ryuji said. "What d'you think, Panther, could we take down Asmodeus with this team? What about Shadow Kobayakawa, what do you think he'll be like?"

"…Ask me after we get out of here."

"…Good point."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Eulenspiegel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Till_Eulenspiegel). (Or, more dignified but less picaresque, [Eulenspeigel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Thyl_Ulenspiegel_and_Lamme_Goedzak).) ~~Please ignore the whole thing about scatological pranks at least this persona is not actually a murderer which is more than you can say for some of them.~~


	6. Deeper In

At first glance Mishima's Thief costume was mostly an unprepossessing gray-brown, but a closer look revealed the cloth was mottled with a _feather_ pattern — like the _giant fucking owl_ he'd been riding. His mask, in contrast, was an immediate attention-grabber. It looked like it had been assembled out of fragments of mirror — some small, some big enough to see a distorted reflection of your face in. It was a little unnerving. Ryuji resisted the temptation to shift the guy's head a little to minimize the chance of spotting his own reflection. He should probably just get over it.

"How long do you think he'll be out?" Shiho asked. 

"Well, I'm not sure," Ann said. "Before we always just waited overnight… Hopefully a few hours? You were fine after… however long it took them to recover from the drugs…"

"Ugghh, how would we _tell_?" Ryuji said. "I have _no idea_ how long it's been."

When they'd realized the tower had regular windows and balconies from which you could see mostly-unaltered Tokyo, Shiho had suggested they could use the sun to at least _guess_ how much time was passing — but they realized quickly that the sky never seemed to change. It was just red-tinted perpetual twilight. So much for that idea.

It had been a long time, though. Even only counting since they'd left the castle safe room — which Ryuji might as well since that was as far as he could _remember_. They'd had, what, two or three fights between the safe room and the tear in reality… then two fights in the prison, one of which they got ambushed for… then the ambush at the fountain where Mishima had been taken… then three floors of incidental Shadow encounters they hadn't had any navigator to avoid… Yeah, it had been a long Palace run even by their later standards.

And it _wasn't over_.

They'd been able to put off thinking about it during the frantic chase to retrieve Mishima, but— "What are we going to do? Keep jumping through the tear and hope we get lucky before we run into something we can't handle?"

"Or wait somewhere," Ann said. "And watch, and see if Blaze can tell? If it looks the same?"

"Except we don't even know that it would," Shiho said. "And even if it does I'm not _certain_ I'd recognize it."

"We could watch for a while, anyway, before we try more blind jumping," Ann said. "See if we can identify any kind of pattern."

That was probably smarter, but really, Ryuji wasn't liking any of the options. "And the only other choice is, what, just flat-out wait for the bad guys to send another team in?"

"Well… the only other _obvious_ choice, anyway." Ann glanced out at the city. "We could, I don't know… try leaving school grounds and see if it… bleeds into the real world out there somewhere, since it's less distorted?"

Huh. "…Do we have _any_ reason to think it would do that?"

"Not that I'm aware of…"

Yeah, they were stuck dealing with the tear and the bad guys. "I wish I had a better idea of what they think they're doing. Studying the Metaverse and Palaces and probably Personas, but why are they doing it this time when they didn't last time, and why is _Akechi_ here? I'd think he was helping their evil experiments except he didn't even show up for them."

"And if they want to study Personas, couldn't they study his?" Ann agreed. "Or if Shido wants them not to bother the busy assassin with annoying creepy experimenting, why send him to the same school they're working in?"

That was an excellent point. Ryuji tried to picture the creepy secretary guy pushing Akechi around, then got hung up on whether to imagine smarmy-detective Akechi or batshit-assassin Akechi. The two scenarios had very different outcomes. "This just doesn't make _sense_!"

"Wait," Shiho said. "I guess you implied it earlier, but the… experimenter people weren't in the school in the old timeline?"

"No," Ryuji said.

Ann shrugged. "I suppose it's _possible_ they were there and just never did anything they've done this time, like block off part of the gym and hold creepy interviews? And if they'd been here they probably would have been more on top of the whole phantom thieves thing, so… I'm pretty sure they weren't."

Shiho frowned. "So… why the change? Ry— I mean, Skull, you came back to… when?"

"November," Ryuji said. "Or at least— I thought I might have come back to right after I met Kamoshida, right? So I thought the others might, too, but does it even make sense to say someone came back in time to something that never happened in their past?"

"Right," Shiho said. "So… maybe it makes more sense to say, um, Panther _remembered the other future_ when we went into the Palace?"

Ann shrugged. "Sounds reasonable."

"So — Skull, how do you know _you_ didn't just remember the other future in November, rather than coming back to then?"

Ah. "I don't," Ryuji admitted readily. "Nothing seemed to have changed until we got to Shuujin, but I guess if the bad guys were already here something else must have already? But I'm not sure how our coming back in time and not doing anything any different would make the conspiracy start throwing students into the Metaverse…" Wait. "You don't think _Akechi_ remembers the other timeline, do you? He didn't look like he recognized me, but he must be a pretty good actor…"

"I don't know, I don't think that would explain anything." Ann sighed. "And Akechi remembering would be _better_ for us than… most of the other bad guys who might remember. If Shido remembered we'd probably all be dead already…" She frowned. "And now I feel like I'm forgetting something."

Ryuji leaned over and poked Mishima's leg hopefully. "You awake yet?"

"Skull it hasn't even been an _hour_."

* * *

It turned out none of them could remember the cityscape as visible from the school well enough to say whether the scene off the balcony was right (apart from being in red-tinted perpetual twilight rather than a normal time of day). Not that it made a difference, but it was something to talk about for half an hour.

* * *

Ann and Shiho both refused to endorse any solo excursions outside the safe room no matter how bored any of them got. Objectively speaking it was the right call, Ryuji understood that. He was just — _really_ bored and antsy.

Also starting to feel sort of hungry. It was probably all in his head. He blamed Mishima for giving him the idea.

Ryuji and Ann tried some joint brainstorming to remember things, with… mixed results. _Shiho_ was learning a lot, anyway, but everything they told her now they'd just need to repeat to Mishima later. They agreed on the keywords of all their major targets. Even working together, they couldn't come up with anything they were sure was Akira's phone number. As far as finding Morgana went, no ideas besides 'Mementos' and 'maybe Shuujin in a year?'. Ryuji at least knew all about Untouchable, but not where Akira had gotten the good medicine. Ann had no idea why Haru and Makoto might not be in school, though she wasn't _certain_ neither of them had been absent the first time around.

"Unless!" Ann said. "Maybe they remember and they're avoiding Akechi?"

"I dunno, I'd buy that for Noir, but I don't think Queen would let Akechi scare her away from school."

"…Yeah, you're probably right." Ann sighed. "You know, if we're right about meeting Kamoshida being important, shouldn't Noir remember? Not from meeting Kamoshida — although she should have last year — but from meeting her father? Uh, not _meeting_ meeting, meeting with—" She looked over to Shiho. "Noir joined up with us when we were going after her father's Palace. He was… not creepy compared to Kamoshida, but that's not saying much."

"Well, we're still just guessing about that, but it might make sense—"

Ann sat bolt upright. " _Yusuke_!"

"Names!" Ryuji said. "Yeah, by the same logic he should—"

"No, he— I saw him in November, at the Kosei cultural festival! You remember, Blaze, the boy who was run over by the tuba? He said I seemed familiar, and when I said we hadn't met he ran off!"

… _That_ was promising. Not certain, it didn't mean he remembered everything, but — promising. "Okay. Okay, so… try Fox, when we get out of here. Think he'll still be in the shack if he remembers?"

"I… have no idea, actually. Check there first? And we can try to find Noir…" Ann made a face. "I don't remember her phone number, either."

Yeah, if Ryuji hadn't remembered Akira's, he wasn't going to remember anyone else's. "What about Oracle? Not her phone number, I mean, but do you think she— Oh, _shit_ , when did her mom die? Can we stop that?"

Ann cringed. "…I think that was… two years, so… last summer?"

"Damn." So much for that idea. (But, he couldn't keep from thinking, at least it hadn't been since Ryuji came back. Remembered. Whatever.) "Well… we should probably still try to talk to her, you think?"

"If she doesn't remember I don't think we'll have much luck, but… yeah." 

Hmm. "Not sure if we want to just show up at her house…" Also not sure if he could remember the address.

"Look at Leblanc first, I guess," Ann said. "…At least once we're sure we wouldn't be leading… creepy experimenter Metaverse-portal people there."

Oh right that. "The longer we're in here the harder it's going to be to sell we don't know how we survived, isn't it."

"Maybe not," Shiho said. "We could act just sort of… overloaded on stress. Too much is happening, so our minds shut down and we're running on instinct, and we don't even know what we're doing anymore?"

That sounded plausible to Ryuji, but he wasn't the one they'd need to convince.

"What about longer term, though?" Ann asked. "Even if we fool them completely about not knowing what happened, they're not just going to… forget about us. They know we did something interesting in their experiment."

"Uggghhhh," Ryuji said. "I want — Fan awake for this. He's more devious than I am. What're we going to call him, anyway?"

"If we're going by masks, Mirror?" Shiho suggested. "Or is that too obvious?"

"You're talking to 'Skull'," Ryuji said. "Mirror's good if he okays it." He eyed Mishima and contemplated trying to shake him awake. "How long's it been now?"

"Not that long!"

* * *

It took a while for Ann to explain what "ivory tower" meant in English. It didn't help that she was _mostly_ sure actual schools, however snobby, didn't actually have actual ivory towers, but not _completely_ sure, so they got off on a tangent about how realistic a building material ivory was, and how many elephants it would kill to get enough to build a whole tower — or did it just mean a color? How did you tell? (And then another tangent about how many Shadows they'd seen looked sort of like elephants and how likely they were to drop any ivory.)

At the end of the discussion Ryuji knew slightly more about English-speaking snobbery then he did before, but wasn't confident he had any better understanding about what Kobayakawa even thought he was doing here. A castle or a museum or a bank made sense, but a _tower_? Then again, _ship_ wasn't any better than tower, and _space station_ just came out of nowhere… Kobayakawa was still full of shit, though.

* * *

"For real though, Shadow Kobayakawa," Ryuji said. "How tough do you think he's going to be?"

"Based on what?" Ann replied, sounding possibly a little exasperated. "The other Shadows in the Palace, which you've seen just as much of as I have?"

"I'm not expecting you to _tell_ me, just… brainstorming. The Shadows are like… bank-level? Wild guess?"

"I don't know what to tell you. Noticeably stronger than the castle, noticeably weaker than anything I fought with Hecate in the future," Ann said. "Bank or pyramid, maybe? I don't know."

Ryuji tried to imagine fighting Bael or that cognitive Sphinx thing with Ann and Shiho and Mishima. They'd have been in trouble against the Sphinx without Futaba, but that was the Sphinx specifically. Bael he thought would have been manageable? Unless someone got one-shotted by the pig bank thing and they were left without any way of reviving them. Or he guessed not having any way to get rid of malign effects would be bad, too. So maybe not something to try without getting better recovery items.

What would Kobayakawa confess, if they changed his heart? Covering up Kamoshida's offenses? Buying into shady conspiracies? _Letting mad scientists throw students into the Metaverse_ , maybe?

"How much do you think he knows about what they're doing in the gym?" Ryuji wondered. "Do you think he knows they're risking students _disappearing_? Because that really seems like something he shouldn't be okay with even if he doesn't care about the students." Even if the bad guys covered their own asses, poorly explained student disappearances couldn't be _desirable_ in a school, right? "Think they lied about what they wanted students for or did he just not even ask?"

"They must have told him something," Shiho said. "Even if he didn't ask."

"Maybe they just told him not to ask," Ann said. "But you're right that it doesn't seem like he'd be okay with the risk of vanishing students." She paused. "I wonder if they've told him they've lost us yet?"

If they'd told their _parents_. Shit. Hell, he really wanted to get back before anyone could upset his mom with this.

"That goes back to how long it's been," Shiho said. "Which we still don't know."

Ryuji tried poking Mishima again.

" _Skull_!"

* * *

Ryuji and Ann were arguing over whether Ann had actually seen something moving outside or if they'd finally started hallucinating from boredom (Shiho's take had been a very unhelpful 'define hallucination') when Mishima groaned, raised his head, and rolled right off the bench he was lying on. "Aw, shit," he mumbled into the floor.

"You're awake!" Ryuji said unnecessarily. "How are you feeling?"

"Less about to collapse, anyway," Mishima said. "Still not really _good_." He started to rub his eyes and bumped into his mask. "This feels weird… can I just take it off to look at it?"

"Yeah, just… slowly and, uh, un-dramatically, I guess."

Mishima did so, then examined the mask. "Huh. It's very… complicated." He grinned. "Unique."

"We're thinking Mirror?" Ann offered. "For your codename, I mean?"

"…Yeah. Yeah, I think I'd like that."

Ryuji silently congratulated their group at being much better at codenames than Morgana.

"I am very ready to get out of here," Mishima said. "…Do we know how we're doing that?"

"We fight back down to the tear and see if it looks right, and hope for the best," Ann said. "If you have a better idea, please share."

He did not.

* * *

The way back down wasn't _too_ bad — less stressful than it had been going up, since at least they weren't on a rescue mission this time — but there were enough fights to make it clear stopping in a safe room had been the right call. Trying to carry someone through all this, especially without the rest they'd had, would not have gone well.

Eulenspiegel was pretty good at spotting things to break for loot, too, so it was also a more lucrative trip than it would have been. Still no revival beads, though.

Finally they reached the room with the Kamoshida fountain — the _most noble hall of volleyball_ , Mishima said with a snort. Everyone stayed well clear of the fountain this time. Regardless of how thirsty they were or felt like they were even though they definitely shouldn't be.

The… tripod recording thingy bullshit mad science stuff didn't look like it had been disturbed after Ryuji had destroyed it, which was good.

The tear was… there.

"What color would you say that is?" Ryuji asked. "Is that… okay it definitely doesn't look like the tear that led here looked, but that doesn't do us any good…"

"It's hard to say anything for sure about color because of how weird the lighting in Palaces is," Ann said. "It… might be red? Or orange… maybe yellow? No, I think not yellow…"

"If the whole… color-destination thing is right, red should be the castle, right?" Mishima said. "Where there are easier Shadows and you guys know the layout already."

Knew what they _remembered_ of the layout, might be a better description… "Yeah. And yellow is that nasty jail."

"With the rat coffins," Shiho said. "I still think those are weird enough to merit mentioning ahead of time."

"I really didn't think we were likely to run into them," Ann said. "Rat coffins and one-shotting dog-headed Shadows. At some point we have to figure out whose Palace that is — but for now we'd rather not go there."

They all looked back at the tear. Red or yellow? Or orange, and they had no idea what _that_ would mean…

Eventually, Ryuji said, "I think it looks more red than yellow. I vote we try it."

"Agreed," Ann sighed. "If it's not the castle, though, do we jump right back through and see where we land, or look for a safe room in the jail or… wherever else we end up?"

Seriously, how many Palaces could one location _have_? "I think we should try another jump. Or two. Maybe get a better idea of what the…" He searched for the right words. "What the rules are, I guess. Are people up to that?"

"Based on my admittedly limited experience, I'm not sure it would be any more work than searching an unfamiliar Palace for a safe room," Shiho said. "I'm willing to try."

Mishima nodded. "I'm wondering how it'll feel different with Eulenspiegel…"

"All right then," Ann said. "Skull?"

Ryuji led the way through the tear again.

He emerged on the other side, stumbled on something, and narrowly avoided faceplanting in the middle of Kamoshida's chapel.

This was probably because they'd talked about what to do if it wasn't the castle. And because Ryuji had almost been anticipating a little experimenting.

He checked the room's perimeter for Shadows, not seeing anything, as the others followed him. Shiho stumbled a bit, too, and Mishima—

" _Skull_!" Mishima said, just as Ann followed. "Look at this!"

They'd all been tripping on cables.

Cables _leading back through the tear_. The _colorless_ tear.

An intact tripod-scanner-thing had fallen over on its side because of said tripping. A little green light on it blinked at them benignly.

"Oh, shit," Ryuji said.

They didn't know what the scanner thing actually scanned, or how much got sent back versus recorded, or what the people monitoring it could read from it, or who _was_ monitoring it, or much of anything, but the more they stood around rationally discussing it, the more they blew their chances of pretending to be poor traumatized clueless victims who definitely didn't need to be detained or interrogated.

But on the other hand, they _really_ needed not to be trapped in the Metaverse anymore.

"Okay, I'm going for it," Ryuji said, and stepped back through before anyone could stop him.

He was expecting — he didn't know what he was expecting. Swarming labcoated scientists, Akechi, Shido himself, Kobayakawa, paramilitary guards?

What he found instead was a dark, near-deserted piece of gym and a single weedy man who stared at him in slack-jawed shock, hand frozen above his phone's screen. "Wh— Wha—"

Ryuji took a step forward — the guy took a step back — in time not to be trampled when the other three followed him.

"Damn it, Ryuji—" Ann started, but then stopped, presumably seeing the guy.

"What — you're—" the man stammered. Damn it, he was giving them all sorts of opportunities to play this but Ryuji just wasn't sure _how_ —

Ann shouldered past Ryuji, snatched the phone out of the man's hand, then spun around and _jumped back through the tear_.

"Ann, don't!" Shiho said, a half-second too late.

"What the fuck?!" Mishima yelped. "What's she—?"

Whatever the hell she was doing they couldn't let her do it alone, but they also couldn't just _not_ try to cover somehow, this guy had seen them acting not at all like traumatized clueless victims— Ryuji lunged and grabbed the guy's arm before he could reach for… anything. "Mishima, Shiho, help me get him through!"

"Help you _what_ ," Shiho said, but she still grabbed the guy's other arm.

He was too dazed to put up much resistance, but went white when he realized Ryuji was heading for the tear. "Wait — that's not safe — I can't go there — you're _crazy_ —"

"Fucking _probably_ ," Ryuji muttered, and dove back through the tear, whiny guy in tow.

Ryuji halted briefly on the other side — it felt like the guy was trying harder to put on the brakes, but then he fell through like he'd been pushed. Ryuji jumped out of the way and let him hit the floor, and looked around for Ann — only a few meters away, actually looking surprised to see him.

…Or possibly surprised Ryuji had… he guessed he'd kidnapped the scientist guy?

They'd clearly both lost their minds.

"What the _hell_ , Panther?" Ryuji demanded.

Ann just held up the phone she'd grabbed. "This'll be a lot easier if we have the MetaNav."

"…That is a very good idea."

Mishima appeared through the tear, than Shiho, though they'd have been fully justified in running the hell away. Instead, they'd stopped to… pick up laptops? The laptop Mishima was holding was attached to the tripod device's cables.

"I thought so." Ann indicated the guy. "What the hell, Skull?"

Ryuji winced. "We couldn't just leave him there to tell… everyone that we just… showed up and stole his phone. …And computers."

"Well, no, but—" Ann frowned. "What's wrong with him?"

"He's hyperventilating," Mishima said scornfully. "Panicking. _That's not safe_ ," he mimicked. " _I can't go there_. But it's safe enough for _us_ , huh?" He looked like he was about to kick the guy, but Shiho put a hand on his shoulder.

"Is there some reason it's particularly unsafe for you… Fukui-san, wasn't it?" Shiho said.

Ryuji was torn between watching the spontaneously developing good cop/bad cop routine and trying to look over Ann's shoulder at the phone. "Is the app there?"

"I'm not sure yet, this phone is weird — ah, here it is—"

"Who intrudes on King Kamoshida's castle?" the Heavenly Punisher guard captain demanded, materializing.

"Oh, for— Seiten Taisei!"

Two minutes and a frankly overkill Ziodyne later, the Heavenly Punisher was gone, the guy had fainted dead away, and the phone had automatically locked while Ann was distracted.

"…Now what?" Shiho said, into the deafening silence.

"Well… it still looks colorless, right?" Ryuji said. "We could just… go back through."

"And do what with him?" Ann said. "Just let him go? That's even worse than leaving him to say we stole his phone." She folded her arms and glared at the passed-out guy. "Also having the app doesn't do us much good if we can't get into the phone."

Mishima shrugged. "Let's take him to a safe room, wake him up, and make him unlock the phone and tell you all the passcodes. Then we'll have the _app_ and that means we can leave the Metaverse anywhere, not just through the tear, right?"

"Not _anywhere_ I don't think, but definitely outside the school," Ryuji said. "Which is great for getting away for the moment, but tells them even more of what we're capable of."

"Well…" Mishima shrugged again. "Nothing says we have to take him _with_ us when we leave. If he stays in the safe room he should be fine, right?"

Ryuji looked at Ann. Ann looked at Ryuji.

"I feel like I should be objecting on moral grounds," Ann said slowly. "But… we could always come get him later. When we have more of an idea what we're doing."

"And it's not like he's an innocent bystander," Ryuji said. He also felt like he should be objecting on moral grounds, but… he wasn't. He looked at Shiho, not sure whether he was hoping she'd agree or hoping she'd stop them.

Shiho made a face. "Well… we can give him a chance to explain himself in the safe room before we leave. Maybe he'll have a good excuse."

…Yeah, they were going to be stranding a guy in the Metaverse. He really hoped they weren't getting in over their heads, but it wasn't like they'd had a chance to turn around. Nothing to do but go forward.


	7. Hell Week: Monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many reasons this chapter was slow in appearing, including but not limited to: Makoto deciding her reason for missing school was inadequate; the author reading a ton of fic in a different fandom; the author having a reduced chocolate supply; the author dealing with Real Life Job Stuff.
> 
> Originally all of Hell Week was going to be one chapter, but honestly Monday seems like it'll stand alone and I wanted to get something out. I'm not completely happy with it, but... hopefully it's acceptable.

Back in the same safe room they'd woken up in after the drugs wore off, they tried to wake up the scientist guy. Fukui-san, whatever. He'd already failed to wake up when Ryuji and Mishima dropped him on the floor, with only enough care to avoid cracking his head on it, so it wasn't surprising that shaking and shouting didn't have any effect. Ryuji was about to suggest Ann try a healing spell when Mishima moved straight on to slapping.

"Wake up, asshole!" he yelled. "We can still take you back to the Heavenly Punisher! Wake up!"

"Mirror—"

The guy groaned, and his eyelids fluttered. Shiho pulled Mishima back before another slap could land.

"Fukui-san," Shiho said. "Welcome back."

"Urk," said Fukui-san.

"If you wouldn't mind unlocking your phone," Ann said, sticking said phone in his face.

Wisely, he didn't try to argue, just obeyed, hands shaking.

"Now change the access code," Mishima added. "To… I don't know, one-two-three-four-five-six."

He did that, too. Ann took the phone back and made sure she could get into it.

"What time is it?" Ryuji demanded. "What _day_ is it?"

"J-just after midnight?" the guy stuttered. "Technically… Monday?"

Not quite thirty-six hours, then. He wasn't sure whether it felt like it had been more or less.

"What did you tell the school?" Shiho said, less hostile but no less forceful. "What did they tell our _parents_?"

Oh, _hell_. Talk about ruining his mom's vacation weekend…

"I, I, uh, th-that, liaising with the school isn't my—" Fukui flinched when Mishima growled. "I don't think, I don't think they've told your parents anything? Or the school anything."

Okay then. If they hadn't notified the parents, then his mom… got home a couple hours ago to find him missing, and not answering his phone. Shit. She would think — he didn't know _what_ she'd think, but she'd worry, and she might contact Shuujin, or worse, the _police_ — Shit shit shit.

Fukui was rambling on. "Kobayakawa has been nosy in general but Yamashita-san told Maki-san to deflect if he asked about you. Abe-san said we needed to get started on a cover right away, but Yamashita-san wants to, uh, wants to try to… recover the bodies… for, for study…" He trailed off, staring at them in terror.

"Well that's got nothing to do with a cover," Ann said. "Which one's Yamashita? Was he there?"

"He was, he interviewed — wait, you _remember_?"

"I _thought_ his name might not really be Satou," Shiho said. "…He's an idiot."

Ryuji thought it looked like Fukui might be approaching that opinion also.

"What about your — what about _his_ bosses?" Ann asked. "Have they been told?"

"N-not — Project Styx gives biweekly progress reports, Yamashita-san tries to avoid interim reports, especially if there have been setbacks—"

"I'll give them _setbacks_ ," Mishima muttered.

"When does he _have to_ report?" Ann pressed.

"The — the twentieth?"

That was just over — no, if it was technically Monday, that was a week.

"What will he try to do if he finds out we escaped?" Ryuji asked.

"W-well, uh, ideally the idea was always to recruit any subjects who successfully manifested externalized juxtego for further study — with compensation, I mean! And p-possibly other employment depending on how things turned out…"

"Let's take it as given that _we're not interested_ ," Ryuji said, not even trying to interpret what all that was supposed to mean.

…Except to note this really was sounding like they hadn't talked to Akechi _at all_. And it could make sense that Shido didn't want these clowns distracting his cognitive assassin, except if that was what he was doing then _why send Akechi to the same school_?

"Um, that — um—"

"I'll be more specific," Mishima said. "Does he have an army of goons he can send to kidnap us?"

"Oh — uh — there are f-four security men…?"

Four guys total — not good, but could be much worse. Especially since these weren't exactly cops, or people with any legal authority over random kids… "And when he figures out we're alive and we don't want to talk to him, will he go ask his boss for an army of goons to kidnap us?"

"N-not, uh, probably not before the twentieth?" Fukui squeaked.

"More immediately," Shiho jumped in, "you were alone in the gym — were you alone in the school, or was one of those security people with you?"

"Shimizu had to go outside for a smoke… when he disabled the detector the principal found out and went ballistic…"

Talk about insult to injury. Ryuji sighed. "We should get out of here. Any more questions?"

"One. You said Kobayakawa's been _nosy_ ," Ann said. "Does that mean it would be a problem if Kobayakawa suddenly decided to tell all?"

"Well — yes, but that's hardly likely— Wait, what do you mean, get out of here?"

"We mean we're leaving," Ryuji said, starting for the door.

"W-wait, what? You can't—"

"Stay in the safe room and you'll be fine," Ann said.

"It's _dangerous_ , there are _entities_ —"

"We'll be back for you when… sometime," Shiho said. She picked up the laptops from the table they'd been dumped on.

"Y-you can't do this!"

Mishima just made a rude gesture.

* * *

There was no way to know if Evil Goon Whatsisname was back from his smoke break yet, so instead of returning to the chapel they made their way past the portrait galleries and the libraries to another safe room.

"Should we go all the way outside the school?" Ryuji wondered. "We probably could…"

"We're just in our gym uniforms with no wallets or anything, though," Shiho said.

Crap, right. "…So we need to hit the locker rooms before we go anywhere, I guess."

"And my purse was in the activity office," Ann said, frowning. "They better not have stolen it. I _like_ that purse."

"Okay, so… wherever we are when we go back through from here, we head to the locker rooms as quickly and quietly as possible, get our stuff, and then…" Then what?

"You can get the app thing on any phone just by taking it into the Metaverse, right?" Mishima asked. "Because probably as soon as we have one of our own phones we should do that, and then ditch that guy's somewhere. I don't trust it not to be traced or bugged or something. It's not a model you can take the battery out of."

"Ugh, good point." In fact— "And if they find it, they'll find the app. We'd better either leave it back here or destroy it."

"And I won't get my phone until I get my purse, so." Ann handed Fukui's phone to Ryuji.

"What about the laptops?" Shiho asked.

"Leave them here for now, I guess? Mirror, did you want to look at them?"

"We just grabbed them in case they'd recorded our turning up again," Mishima said. "Leave them for now."

"All right." Ryuji pulled up the app on Fukui's phone. "Ready?"

"As we'll ever be…"

The castle fell away around them, and they were — in the real world, in a darkened classroom, with nothing but their gym uniforms and Fukui's phone. The wall clock showed 01:15. So far, so good.

The trek to the locker rooms was tense, but uneventful. Any night security was elsewhere — or maybe Kobayakawa had gotten rid of them so the evil scientists could operate undisturbed, who knew. The locker rooms themselves were dark and silent and undisturbed and, thankfully, not locked. Ryuji almost jumped out of his skin when Mishima tripped over a bench in the dark, but it wasn't _that_ loud.

He didn't _feel_ like he'd gone thirty-six hours without eating and barely drinking. Hungry and thirsty, definitely, and more than he'd been in the Metaverse, but not as much as he should have been.

They changed as quickly as possible by the emergency lights. Ryuji's phone was dead. Mishima's wasn't, because it was hooked up to a portable battery charger. Nerd.

Mishima unlocked the phone and handed it to Ryuji without being asked. "Go ahead, I want to get rid of that guy's phone as soon as possible."

"Mind coming with me just in case yours locks by accident?" Wouldn't _that_ be embarrassing.

The MetaNav on Fukui's phone dropped them from the locker room to one of the balconies near the chapel. Ryuji made sure the app was showing up on Mishima's phone, then dropped Fukui's and used a lightning spell on it. Then back to the real world, where despite not having taken a single step in the Metaverse they'd shifted into the next aisle of lockers somehow and Ryuji nearly bashed his would-have-been-bad knee on a bench. Fucking Metaverse.

They met up with the girls and retreated back to a second-floor classroom. They sat on the floor to be sure they couldn't be seen through the windows, next to a power outlet so Ryuji and Shiho could charge their phones.

"I didn't try the activity office door," Ann whispered. "Figured it was too big a risk. But I want that purse back."

"It was probably locked anyway," Ryuji said. He checked to see if his phone had revived yet.

"So… what are we going to do?" Shiho asked.

What _were_ they going to do.

"We _could_ just leave," Mishima said. "Now that we have our wallets — well, Ann-san doesn't, but we could cover her train fare. We'd be kind of conspicuous, this time of night, it's possible we'd be stopped, but it might be fine."

"Then what, though?" Ryuji said. "We wouldn't be able to come back to school without them realizing we escaped. I don't want to just… hide in a basement or something with no plan to get out of it." Much less try to explain such a situation to his mother.

"Yeah, I don't think we should do that," Ann said. " _They_ fucked up. Why should we help them keep their secrets? We haven't done anything wrong."

"We did sort of kidnap Fukui," Shiho pointed out.

"That hardly counts," Mishima said dismissively. "I'm not sure how it makes a difference, though? They'll want to silence us whether or not we've done anything wrong, they might even want to, to _recruit_ us it sounded like—"

"Something weird's going on there," Ryuji muttered.

"Okay, yes, but," Ann said. "How about this — we give them something else to worry about?"

Wait. "You mean—"

"We change Kobayakawa's heart, he confesses everything _except_ our identities, and they'll have _way_ too much to worry about to come after us."

Hmmm.

It wasn't… an unappealing thought.

Pretty damn appealing, actually.

It was sort of what he'd been thinking already, wasn't it, asking how strong Ann thought Kobayakawa's Shadow would be?

They had two ultimate Personas — three if Yusuke really did remember — a navigator, and Shiho was learning fast. Bank or pyramid level…

"We have a week," Ryuji said slowly. "Or… actually it'd be better if we could have him confess by Saturday, so… less than a week. That's not… impossible."

"No," Ann said. "I mean… I'm not saying it would be easy, but… doable. I think."

"You guys don't sound… one hundred percent confident about this," Shiho said.

"I'm up for it," Mishima said.

"Well, we're not," Ann said. "One hundred percent confident. But it's worth a try, isn't it? I like it better as an idea than going into _hiding_ , which is the other idea I have."

Shiho made a face. "How would we even do that?"

"We could probably come up with something," Ann said, shrugging. "But I don't want to."

"Yyyyyyyeah," Ryuji agreed. "If we decide it's not going to work we can… go into hiding later, right?"

"And we're… absolutely sure going to the police isn't an option?" Shiho asked.

"Yes," Ryuji and Ann said in unison.

"I… guess it has to be alternative methods, then," Shiho said. "All right. What do we need to do?" She paused. "Possibly step one should be getting some sleep so we aren't complete zombies tomorrow."

Ann raised a finger. "Maintain a facade or normalcy for the school and our parents!" She paused. "…Your parents, anyway."

Mishima shrugged. "Mine will pay plenty of attention if the school calls them about anything. Otherwise it shouldn't be an issue."

"Mine are in Kyushu until next Sunday," Shiho said. Wow, this was just pathetic. "We should be done by then, right?"

Or else going into hiding, Ryuji didn't say. Or worse. "Yeah. I've got kind of a problem there, though, my mom will have gotten home a few hours ago and found me missing." He looked at his still-dead phone. "I'll have to tell her _something_."

"Tell her Kamoshida locked you in an equipment room as a joke," Ann suggested. "Plausible, right?"

"Would it be a problem if she went to Kobayakawa about it?" Mishima asked. "Or worse, the cops?"

"I dunno, but I could say she shouldn't," Ryuji said. "I don't know if…"

In the hospital, after _the incident_ , one of the doctors or nurses or something had told his mom that the most serious injuries had evidently been inflicted when Ryuji was prone. Ryuji had still been on painkillers at the time and hadn't followed much, but in hindsight whoever it was had been hinting around that what Kamoshida had done wasn't okay, legally, even if Ryuji hit first. His mom had looked sad, but… she hadn't pushed.

"…I can convince her not to follow up on it, I think," he said. "Kamoshida's a god here, I got off lucky, I'll avoid him in the future." And he would, too, until they _took him down_. "As for school, I guess…"

"Heads down and don't cut class," Shiho said.

"Darn," said Mishima. 

Ryuji wasn't sure if he was joking, but continued instead of asking. "Next thing is to contact Yusuke, maybe Futaba or Haru if we can figure out how."

"Why aren't they in _school_ ," Ann lamented. "…Haru and Makoto, I mean. We also need better weapons, we're just back at the really basic ones."

"I know where to go for that," Ryuji said. Then he remembered Untouchable's _price tags_. "…I don't have the money for that."

"Last time we mostly got the money from Palace loot, right?" Ann said. "How much were we getting from the Shadows in Kamoshida's Palace?"

It had been so _easy_ to just let Akira do all the budgeting. Ugh, math, right? "…I don't know. I don't think enough to get a lot _fast_." If they just had more _time_ …

"I've got some savings," Mishima said reluctantly. Ryuji wondered if they'd eventually gone into setting up the Phan-Site, in the other timeline.

"…My parents have a cashbox I know how to get into," Ann said, more reluctantly. "But we'd have to replace everything before they got back."

"Plenty of time for that, though, right?" Ryuji said.

"…Yeah." Ann sighed. "We'll need healing items, too. Magic replenishers."

"Keep up a front, contact the others, weapons, healing stuff. Armor! Getting to the Treasure probably won't be easy, either…"

"None of it will be any easier if we're all zombies tomorrow," Shiho said. "Really, we need to get some sleep."

Ryuji's phone screen lit up as it finally charged enough to come back to life. "…Yeah, I can't just yet."

Without unplugging the charger, he unlocked his phone and checked — ten missed calls, one Saturday evening, one Sunday midday, and all the rest since 9:30 in the evening on Sunday, which must have been when she got back. There were voicemails, too, but he didn't listen to them, just called. And then remembered it was like two in the morning. Ooops.

His mom picked up right away, though. "Ryuji?!"

"Yeah, it's me," he said. "I'm really sorry I couldn't call earlier—"

"Are you all right? Where _are_ you?"

"I'm, uh — I'm at Shuujin." Not roaming the city, that should be reassuring, right? "Have been since Saturday. There was a… a thing, and I got sort of… locked in? And I didn't have my phone and then when I got it back it was dead and I only just had a chance to charge it—" Ryuji broke off when Mishima kicked him in the ankle. What?

"Locked in— Ryuji, what _happened_?"

"It's, uh, it's kind of a long story — can I tell you when I get home?"

"I'll call a taxi—"

"No!" He didn't want to _think_ about how much that would cost. "No, it'd be a lot simpler for me to just, um, go to school, and then come home in the afternoon like usual. I'll explain everything when you get home from work, okay?" Sort of.

"I'd rather you were home _now_ , Ryuji — you were locked in somewhere without your phone?"

"Look, there's just — a lot going on in the school, okay? We have to be — careful. Not — just, if we rock the boat in the wrong way it could really, uh, really set off a land mine."

"Quite a trick in a boat," Mishima muttered. Ryuji kicked him back.

"It's just, it's a _really_ long story, Mom — please?"

"I suppose," she said, still clearly unhappy. "You're all right, though?"

"Not a scratch on me!"

"And you have somewhere to stay the rest of the night?"

"Of course!" She probably didn't mean a classroom floor, but it was technically true.

"If you're _certain_ you're all right…"

"Fine! I should probably get some sleep, though." He fake-yawned. "So should you, you have work…"

"All right, I guess. But you text me before class and at lunch and call me from the apartment when you get home, Ryuji, and I'm going to want an explanation!"

"I will, Mom. Promise. Loveyoubye."

"I love you, too—"

Ryuji hung up and avoided looking at anyone. He wasn't sure if he was afraid of being mocked for being sentimental with his mom or afraid he'd hurt their feelings because none of them had a sentimental mom.

"…What are you going to tell her?" Ann asked.

"…I'll think of something."

* * *

Keeping up a front for the rest of school went… fine, Ryuji thought. He managed not to doze off or get caught looking at his phone during class, despite Mishima — Yuuki, it should probably be — texting questions about the Metaverse every five minutes, and Ryuji checking at every single notification in case it was his mom verifying that he hadn't disappeared again. It only was once, but he couldn't risk missing any.

Ann said at lunch that she got her purse back easily by asking a non-evil teacher about it. Ryuji dutifully texted his mom and tried to decide how little he could get away with telling her. Yuuki set up a group chat so he could pester everyone with Metaverse questions at once.

Halfway through the afternoon the evil fake secretary guy what's-his-name burst into Ryuji's classroom in the middle of math and stared at him incredulously. He then failed to come up with any kind of excuse for the teacher — who thankfully didn't seem to have noticed he was staring at Ryuji specifically — and ran away. The teacher was not impressed. 

So. Bad guys had noticed they were back. Well, they knew that would happen — for now, play dumb. 

After school they all hustled away quickly before anyone could accost them, and met up in an alley out of sight. 

Yuuki opened up the app on his phone. "How do we do this?"

"Pretty simple," Ryuji said. He leaned towards the phone, although it probably wasn't necessary. "Principal Kobayakawa. Shuujin Academy. Ivory tower."

The real world melted away, and — there it was. It looked weird from the outside, but probably not any worse than the castle.

"Okay, everyone make sure you have the app," Ryuji said, opening his own phone. "Then we'll leave for now, and—" He broke off. The app had come up on his phone as desired, and the destination had appeared, but now it was doing the 'phone thinking' thing, and… "Huh."

Ann looked up from her own phone. "Mine's showing two locations already marked for travel in this Palace. I guess it remembers we were there before, now that we're in the Palace…?"

"Huh," Ryuji said again. "Well… not going to complain about something that makes things easier!"

About time they got a damn break.

Now the hard part.

* * *

While Ryuji had to go home immediately to allay parental concerns, none of the other three had that problem. _They_ were going to go by Ann's house to raid the cash box, then to Shibuya to try to find Yusuke and check out Untouchable. Ryuji would have _liked_ to go to Untouchable himself, but since they had to go to Shibuya to look for Yusuke anyway… Hopefully none of them would make a scene and get thrown out. Ann promised to keep him updated.

It was especially welcome since his mom wasn't even home yet. Ryuji dutifully called her from the landline to verify his at-homeness, and then… had to keep busy.

He took a shower, not because he felt like he needed one but because he didn't want to have to explain not needing one. Once out, he checked his phone.

AT: Okay we hit the cash box  
AT: We've got 200000 to work with  
AT: And will have another 15000 or so from Yuuki's savings though we didn't go get that yet  
RS: Thats not bad at all  
AT: We'll have to pay the cash box money all back before they come back!  
RS: Should probably pay Mishima back too  
AT: Anyway I feel really awkward about carrying all this on the train

Still a good hour and a half until his mom got home from work. Her bags from the trip were barely out of the genkan — she must have been so worried. Fucking Shuujin.

His dishes from Friday night and Saturday morning were still in the sink. He'd been going to get those before she got back. Better do it now. Also the empty juice carton on the counter needed to go in the recycling. _And_ the several-day-old leftovers he'd taken out of the refrigerator to throw out, then been afraid to open, should be actually thrown out. At this point he decided not to try to salvage the container.

At least he hadn't left any disasters in the bathroom. He didn't think.

AT: No luck  
RS: He doesnt remember after all?  
AT: He's not HERE  
AT: The guy who answered the door — not Madarame, happily — said Yusuke was out somewhere  
AT: I asked him to tell Yusuke I'd been looking for him and left my number  
RS: Hopefully thatll do it  
AT: It's going to be intensely awkward if he doesn't remember but I think he does  
AT: On to the airsoft shop for now  
RS: great

What the hell was Yusuke doing "out"? He had zero social life.

With the kitchen presentable, or at least less disastrous, Ryuji decided to go ahead and make dinner. He was no Akira, but he could do a simple curry from a mix. That should improve his mom's mood?

What was he going to _tell_ her…

No, he'd already decided this. Kamoshida locked him in a storage closet for laughs. Right.

Wait. Maybe he should tell her he'd been locked in a bathroom, that might avoid certain awkward questions.

Wait. Had he already said storage closet? He couldn't contradict something he'd already said…

He couldn't remember what exactly he'd said. He'd just have to hope she didn't remember either.

AT: oh my god how did Akira pay for all this without a cash box to raid  
RS: a looooooooot of loot-selling mostly  
RS: I think

Akira's secret weapon: superhuman money management. Ryuji could believe it.

AT: Shiho wants to know why an airsoft shop has so many melee weapons  
RS: No idea  
RS: Do they have my dragon god pole?  
AT: We're still looking  
AT: Great, Yuuki's wandered off  
AT: Should we get him something so he doesn't feel left out?  
RS: Ugh, probably  
RS: Unless he gets you all thrown out of the store somehow

He got started on the curry, checking his phone whenever it buzzed—

AT: the dragon god pole is here  
AT: but I think it costs too much  
AT: can't get my spike whip either :(

AT: Shiho's guns are TINY they should cost less

AT: looking at whips in public is really awkward

AT: not getting your stun baton either  
AT: what is addition anyway

AT: shit shit shit  
AT: We almost walked out of here with NO armor  
AT: thank you Shiho

Shit, Ryuji hadn't been thinking of armor, either. He was about to message back when he heard his mom get back, and his phone had to go in his pocket.

"I'm home," his mom said, taking off her shoes.

"Welcome back," Ryuji said. "I'm really sorry for all the worry. I made dinner?"

"You cooked?" she said, sounding more surprised that he'd have—

…He'd only really learned to cook after the incident, partially trying to make up for the trouble he'd caused his mom by relieving pressure elsewhere, and partially out of boredom after all his track activities went away. Start-of-high-school Ryuji stuck to the microwave. 

"I learned from, uh, I learned from Shiho." Because Ann cooking didn't sound plausible. Although with her parents gone so much Ann had to feed herself somehow… "Not sure how good it is, but it shouldn't be terrible."

"Well… thank you, Ryuji, I'm sure it's fine. Let me put my things away and we can eat."

It was too much to hope for that she'd forget she wanted an explanation, but so far so good.

He checked his phone. 

AT: Yuuki wants to know why an airsoft shop has armor  
AT: Shiho wants to know how half of this even qualifies as armor  
AT: I said mysterious metaverse reasons but she's not satisfied  
AT: I have to admit "battle camisole" doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either

His mom came back before he could come up with a response to that.

The curry had turned out fine, which was good, unless it prompted her to ask more questions about how he'd learned. That would be not so good.

During dinner he asked questions about the onsen and her old friends, and she answered them, but he could tell his turn to explain was coming. His phone vibrated in his pocket fairly frequently, but he didn't get a chance to check it until they were cleaning up.

AT: or "elysian robes"  
AT: "gaudy undies" wtf

AT: okay everyone is getting army vests  
AT: or all combatants are getting army vests  
AT: navigators are safe, right?

AT: Yuuki not convinced navigators are safe and now that we're discussing it that owl is a lot less protection than Necronomicon or Prometheus soooooo…

AT: why does everything cost so much  
AT: goodbye chain whip  
AT: :'(

AT: Shiho is getting a sword called "foil again"  
AT: probably

AT: why can't any of us add

AT: fake papal robes  
AT: do a lot of pope cosplayers come to the airsoft store for outfitting do you suppose?

AT: getting Yuuki the cheapest possible sniper rifle which is NOT VERY CHEAP

AT: spending this much money at once makes me very very nervous

Ryuji sympathized, but didn't have time to text back before he couldn't put off explanations any farther.

He started out with, "I am horribly, horribly sorry to have worried you so much but I really did call the minute I could." Without stopping to strategize, which may have been a mistake.

"I'm glad you did," she said. "Ryuji, what _happened_?"

"Well, there's this coach…"

And he explained Kamoshida: his Olympic background, how big a deal he was in the school, how looked-up-to he mostly was; his bullying of male students, sexual harassment (or worse) of female students, and generally treating the school like his personal castle; his fairly blatant misdeeds that were already ignored or swept under the rug.

"I was _lucky_ ," he emphasized. "I got locked in the bathroom for like a day and a half, yeah. It was — not good. But I'm not hurt, and at least so far there's no… disciplinary stuff, and I think he still doesn't really care about me, it was just a random thing, so… Mom, can we _please_ just let it go? It would be my word against his." And Kamoshida would be the one telling the truth, how bizarre. "It wouldn't go anywhere and he _would_ hold it against me. Just — please?"

His mom looked… deeply unhappy. She closed her eyes for a moment.

"…Mom?"

"That's… you're approaching this very maturely, Ryuji. I'm proud of you. Just — this is one side of maturity I was hoping I could put off a while longer."

He wondered what exactly she was thinking — knowing the system was rigged against you and the authorities were not to be trusted? He thought he'd had some idea of that for a while now…

Maybe she meant it was mature to give in when your opponent was too strong, in which case she shouldn't be proud because that was not what he was doing. At all.

"All right. If you feel strongly that I shouldn't interfere, I won't, for now. But I want you to write down every interaction you have with him. And if he does something that leaves a mark, photograph it. We document _everything_."

"Okay, Mom."

He wondered what she was thinking they'd do if Kamoshida _did_ start something. …He wondered if she had done anything, in the old timeline.

"And now I think we should both turn in early. We were both up in the middle of the night, after all!"

"Yeah." He _was_ pretty damn tired. "Sorry again about that."

Still wondering about what if anything his mom had done in the first timeline, Ryuji made it all the way through his evening routine before remembering to check his phone again.

AT: Done, finally!  
AT: We have army vests for everyone and weapons at I think about pyramid or space station level  
AT: well Yuuki's isn't so good but he theoretically shouldn't even be using it  
AT: I think we did a really good job getting weapons as good as we could  
AT: We have like 1400￥ left!  
AT: now we have to get all this back to my house somehow and then I collapse

* * *

AT: SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT  
AT: I FORGOT ABOUT MEDICINES

**Author's Note:**

> Come ask questions or otherwise talk at me at [my tumblr](https://ceescedasticity.tumblr.com/)!


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